Group & Last Name Index to Full History:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Tracks are listed in chronological order by year, then alphabetically.
Listings do not reflect proper order by month or day: later oft precedes earlier.
Find on Page = F3. Not on this page? See history tree below.
On the Sunny Side of the Street
Featured on this page loosely in order of first recording if not record release (as possible).
Names are alphabetical, not chronological, per year:
| 1921 | |
| 1925 | Boswell Sisters |
| 1926 | Al Bowlly |
| 1927 | Adelaide Hall Helen Humes |
| 1929 | Mildred Bailey Jimmy Rushing |
| 1930 | Ray Eberle |
| 1931 | Mills Brothers Pickens Sisters Lee Wiley |
| 1933 | Billie Holiday Valaida Snow |
| 1934 | Helen Ward Midge Williams |
| 1935 | Bob Eberly |
| 1936 | Ella Fitzgerald Lena Horne |
| 1937 | Andrews Sisters King Sisters The Modernaires Ray Nance Maxine Sullivan Martha Tilton |
| 1938 | Helen Forrest Betty Hutton Marion Hutton Jo Stafford Rosetta Tharpe |
| 1939 | Kitty Kallen Helen O'Connell Pied Pipers Frank Sinatra |
| 1941 | Peggy Lee Anita O'Day |
| 1942 | Ella Mae Morse |
1930 On the Sunny Side of the Street
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Caveats in the employment of this page: 1. It descends in chronological
order by the year the artist or band is first found on a commercial record
issue (ideally) by year only, alphabetical thereat. One musician above
another doesn't necessarily translate to earlier issue unless the year
changed. 2. Though release dates are the aim with links to YouTube, some
are recording dates and may not be everywhere clearly distinguished. 3.
Reissues are used to represent originals without much discussion. This
page includes vocalists who sang w dance orchestras, not properly jazz but
generally employing a lot of jazz musicians. |
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| Nice online sources for early
jazz including swing are
history and
theory at Jazz Standards,
and the Great American Songbook at 1,
2,
3.
Timelines at Jazz In America
and All About Jazz.
Swing era vocals by bandleaders (such as Blanche
or Cab Calloway) will be found in Swing Jazz 1.
Swing era vocal groups not on this page can be found in Doo Wop.
Sessions this page are largely
Lord's Disco.
References to the
Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR 1,
2) and Red Hot Jazz (RHJ
1,
2,
3)
also point to sessions. See also Walter Bruyninckx' [1,
2,
3] '85 Years
of Recorded Jazz 1917-2002 A-Z Complete'
compared
to Lord in 2011, Jørgen Grunnet Jepson,
and Brian Rust 'Jazz and Ragtime Records 1897 – 1942' and 'Jazz Records
1917–1934'. Composers for this period at Songbook.
A good source for lyrics for this period in jazz is
Lyrics Playground.
Ditto songwriting credits at
Cafe Songbook,
Jazz Standards,
Songfacts and
Second Hand Songs. See also Lyrics
(credits occasionally inaccurate),
OldieLyrics
and SongMeanings.
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Born in Chester Pennsylvania in 1896, Ethel Waters ("Blackbird") [1, 2, 3, 4, 5/Film] was ultimately a gospel vocalist. She is credited as the first black female vocalist to make her name on Broadway [1, 2]. She began recording in 1921 [*], with 'The New York Glide' and 'At the New Jump Steady Ball', then 'Oh Daddy' and 'Down Home Blues' [disco]. Waters had married at age thirteen. But he was abusive, to which she preferred to become a maid in Philadelphia. At age 17 she attended a nightclub costume party at which she was requested to sing a couple songs. That led to her first professional gig at Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore. Ten dollars a week, with tips thrown on stage by the audience taken by the managers, after which she began touring the vaudeville circuit to considerably greater success. She eventually settled in Harlem where she played the clubs (eventually the prestigious Cotton Club) and began recording, making such a name for herself that she would soon be working with such as Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson. Her first film appearance is thought to be 'On With the Show' in 1929, though she earlier played Broadway as well. IBDB has her in the Broadway production of 'Africana' in 1927. Her first film appearance is thought to have been 'On With the Show' in 1929. Highlighting the thirties was another first in the entertainment industry, her own television show in 1939, a variety hour called 'The Ethel Waters Show'. Encyclopedia.com has her career commencing its decline in the mid forties upon the robbery on an unidentified date of $45,000 worth of her cash and jewelry. Doubleday published her autobiography, 'His Eye Is on the Sparrow', in 1951. Six years later she sang at her first Billy Graham Crusade at Madison Square Park, NYC. 1972 saw the publication of her memoir, 'To Me, It's Wonderful'. Waters died in California on September 1, 1977, 80 years of age [*]. Recordings w various credits at australiancharts and discogs. Lyrics at *. Televised interview in 1972 on the 'Dick Cavett Show'. More Ethel Waters at Blues 2. See also pianist, James Johnson, in Early Jazz. Ethel Waters 1921 Music: Tom Delaney Lyrics: Sidney Easton Composition: Geo Thorne 1878 Ethel Waters 1926 Composition: Jack Palmer/Spencer Williams Composition: Boyd Atkins Ethel Waters 1929 Composition: Grant Clarke/Harry Akst Music: Richard Whiting/Sam Coslow Lyrics: Leo Robin Ethel Waters 1933 With the Dorsey Brothers' Orchestra Composition: Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler Ethel Waters 1934 Composition: Cole Porter Ethel Waters 1965 Live performance Music: Charles Gabriel 1905 Lyrics: Leo Robin Ethel Waters 1975 Live performance Music: Charles Gabriel 1905 Lyrics: Leo Robin
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Ethel Waters Photo: Carl Van Vechten |
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Boswell Sisters L to R: Martha - Connee - Vet Source: J. P.'s Blog |
Hailing from New Orleans, the Boswell Sisters [1, 2] brought female harmony to jazz about a decade before the Andrews Sisters. A highly sophisticated group musically speaking, the Sisters consisted of Connee (Connie b '07/d '76), Martha (b '05/d '58) and Helvetia "Vet" Boswell (b '11/d '88), Connee studied classical cello as a youth, Martha piano and Vet violin. Connee later applied herself to saxophone, Vat to banjo. Performing professionally as teenagers, they generally arranged themselves w Connee and Martha at piano and Vet standing behind in between since Connee had been wheel-chair bound since age three due to polio if not an accident. DAHR and Lord's trace recordings to as early as 22 March 1925 in New Orleans for unissued tracks of 'You Can Call Me Baby All the Time' and 'Pal o' Mine'. Also gone down was 'I'm Gonna Cry' featuring Connee issued on Victor acoustic 19693. (Victor electric 19693 was the 'The Whole World Is Dreaming of Love' by the Benson Orchestra [1, 2]). Three days later 'Dad' went down unissued w 'Nights When I Am Lonely' released flip to Victor 19693. They then toured as a vaudeville act to end up in Los Angeles in 1929 [Wikipedia] where they recorded numerous radio transcriptions by Continental in Hollywood. Lord's Disco begins its incomplete list of those per #3041 circa April of 1930 for titles like 'South Sea Rose', tracking to #4136 containing such as 'We're on the Highway to Heaven'. The latter also went down on 20 July for the film, 'Oh Sailor Behave!', backed by the Jackie Taylor Orchestra issued on Victor 22500. A couple sessions on October 3 and 31 wrought such as 'Gee But I'd Like to Make You Happy'/'Don't Tell Him What Happened to Me' (Okeh 41470). Moving to New York City in 1930 [Wikipedia], they there worked in radio for a couple years w CBS. Lord's has their initial tracks in NYC per 19 March 1931 for 'Wha'd Ja Do to Me?'/'When I Take My Sugar to Tea' (Brunswick 6083). They were supported on that by Jack Purvis (trumpet), Tommy Dorsey (trombone), Jimmy Dorsey (clarinet/alto sax), Chauncey Morehouse (drums) and others unknown. The Boswells also released 'I Found a Million-Dollar Baby' in '31 on Brunswick 6128, probably their best-selling title if not 'Gems from George White's Scandals' (Brunswick 20102) issued later that year (both #3 at Music VF: 1, 2). They appeared in the film, 'Close Farm-ony', released in Jan of 1932. Other of the Sisters' more popular songs were 'The Object of My Affection' ('35) and 'I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter' ('36). The Boswell Sisters made their last recordings together on February 12, 1936: 'Let Yourself Go' and 'I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket' (Decca 709). As Martha had just married, Vet half a year prior, they retired to their husbands as Connee continued her solo career. Connie had featured w the Sisters and recorded numerous solo titles backed by Martha at piano w various bands (Vet out). She'd led 'I'm Gonna Cry' back in '25. Going by Lord's, she was supported on 27 July 1931 in NYC by Martha, Manny Klein (trumpet), Tommy Dorsey (trombone), Jimmy Dorsey (clarinet), Harry Hoffman (violin), Dick McDonough (guitar), Joe Tarto (bass) and Chauncey Morehouse (drums/vibes) toward 'I'm All Dressed Up with a Broken Heart What Is It?' (Brunswick 6162). Among her best-selling titles had been 'Say It Isn't So' in '32. After her sisters retired Connee released her highly popular 'On the Beach at Bali-Bali' the same year (#3 Music VF). Connee hovered high on the charts into the forties, 'If I Give My Heart to You' ranking at #10 as late as Sep of 1954. Martha had held engagements beyond the Sisters as well, such as the unissued 'Bugle Call Rag' in the orchestra of Victor Young on 10 Sep 1932, that eventually released by Jazz Oracle on a Dorsey Brothers compilation (Vol 4). Lord's has her as "probably" on 11 April 1933 w an ARC studio band called Owen Fallon and his Californians toward 'Keep Looking Forward' (Banner 32756). Along w vocalist, Dick Robertson, that band consisted of Bunny Berigan (trumpet), Tommy Dorsey (trombone), Jimmy Dorsey (clarinet), Dick McDonough (guitar), Artie Bernstein (bass) and Larry Gomar (drums). Among others with whom the Boswells had worked were Benny Goodman, Carl Kress, Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti. Their major contemporary rivals had been the Pickens Sisters and the X Sisters. The trio was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. Sessions grouped by DAHR: Boswell Sisters, Connee, Martha, Vet. Issues grouped by Discogs: Boswell Sisters, Connee, Martha, Vet. Other catalogs: Boswell Sisters: 1, 2; Connee Boswell: 1, 2. Compilations: 'That's How Rhythm Was Born' per Art Deco 1995. Sheet music. Boswell Sisters in visual media. Archives. Further reading: 1, 2, 3, 'The Boswell Legacy' by Kyla Titus (CreateSpace 2014). Other profiles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Boswell Sisters 1925 Composition: Martha Boswell Boswell Sisters 1930 Music: Jimmy McHugh Lyrics: Dorothy Fields Boswell Sisters 1931 Music: Harry MacGregor Woods Lyrics: Mort Dixon Composition: Milton Ager Boswell Sisters 1932 Composition: Edgar Leslie/James Monaco Music: Spencer Williams 1924 Lyrics: Jack Palmer Composition: Victor Young/Ned Washington/Lee Wiley Composition: Fats Waller/Don Redman/Andy Razaf Composition: Leon René/Otis René/Clarence Muse Boswell Sisters 1933 Music: Duke Ellington/Barney Bigard Lyrics: Irving Mills Composition: Duke Ellington Composition: Leon René/Otis René/Clarence Muse Boswell Sisters 1936 Composition: Fred E. Ahlert/Joe Young I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket Last recording 2/12/36 Composition: Irving Berlin Recorded 2/12/36 Composition: Irving Berlin Composition: Don Raye/Hughie Prince/Tom Waring
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Al Bowlly Source: Live Blues |
Born in 1898 in Mozambique, guitarist
Al Bowlly laid more than a thousand tracks during
his brief fifteen-year recording career. He was fairly well-known in
America as well, though recorded largely in Berlin and London. Among the earliest of crooners, Bowlly's
first professional work was also as a vocalist with the Edgar Adeler ensemble,
touring South Africa, Rhodesia, India and Indonesia. He then worked with the
Jimmy Liquime band in India and Singapore. It was with Liquime that Bowlly
made his first recordings in 1926 in Calcutta, India, playing banjo on 'Soho Blues'
and 'The House Where the Shutters Are Green' (Harlequin HQ2013). These are
considered the first jazz recordings made in India. Bowlly then made his
way to Berlin, hooking up with Arthur Briggs for his first Berlin session
in January 1927, 'Ca c'est Paris' and 'Black Bottom' among those titles.
Bowlly also recorded in his own name for the first time in Berlin on 18
August 1927, playing ukulele with pianist, Edgar Adeler (above), on 'Say,
Mister, Have You Met Rosie's Sister?' issued per Electrola 134-32447/48
and Homochord 4-2386. That session included 'Blue Skies' (Irving Berlin)
also on Homochord 4-2386. In January of 1928 he put away numerous titles
with the John Abriani Six like 'I Love No One But You' (Homochord 4-2514)
and 'Can't You Hear Me Say I Love You' (Homochord 4-2532). In May 1928
Bowlly recorded such as 'Bygones' and 'Rain' with Billy Bartholomew's
Delphians Jazz Band for Grammophon. Bowlly left Berlin for London in July
of 1928, there to hook up with the band of Fred Elizalde at the Savoy
Hotel. It was with Elizalde and His Music that Bowlly first got mixed with
guitarist, Len Fillis, with whom he would record numerously in various
capacities into 1931. February of 1929 found Bowlly recording 'What a
Wonderful Wedding That Will Be' with Len Fillis' Entertainers before a
session in April to put away 'Up in the Clouds' with pianist, Percival
Mackey, in the Ever-Bright Boys, both in London. On 4 June of 1929 Bowlly
and Fillis filled a trio with pianist, Sid Bright, toward 'Anita' and
'Progressions' on Columbia 5698. Bowlly and Bright filled a few more
sessions together in 1930 and 1931 in Ferrachini's Hawaiian Band and
Fillis' Novelty Orchestra. Bowlly recorded vocal duets with Les Allen from
November of 1929 into 1931. In the meantime a session with Elizalde's
Rhythmusicians in London in December of 1929 resulted in 'After the Sun
Kissed the World Goodbye' and 'If Anything Happened to You'. Ray Noble
backed Bowlly as early as 14 July 1930 in Hayes toward 'The Prisoner's
Song' on HMV FJ-133. His recordings with Noble's
Night Club Kings in July of 1930 went unissued. The next year, however, he
found himself recording with Noble's New
Mayfair Orchestra at Small Queen's Hall on February 24, to issue 'Makin'
Wicki-Wacki Down in Waikiki' and 'Shout for Happiness'. Bowlly would stick
with Noble into 1936. A month prior to the
New Mayfair Orchestra Bowlly had recorded with
Roy Fox' band. That January 28 session ('31)
yielded "A Peach of a Pair'. Bowlly worked with
Fox until
Lew Stone assumed leadership of Fox'
orchestra in 1932, renaming it the Monseigneur Band. Bowlly's initial
titles with
Stone were from a session on October 31,
1932: 'Nightfall', 'Rain, Rain, Go Away', 'In the Still of the Night' and
'Why Waste Your Tears?'. Bowlly would make tracks with
Stone into 1938. Bowlly began a duo with guitarist and vocalist Jimmy Mesene,
in 1940.
The last song Bowlly recorded was with Mesene: 'When That Man Is Dead and
Gone' in 1941. It was World War II and the Germans were bombing. Bowlly was killed two weeks later (April 17) by a Luftwaffe parachute
mine that exploded outside his flat in London, blowing his door off its hinges
and striking him. Unmentioned above is Bowlly's film
career. IMDb has him as
early as 1931 as an uncredited vocalist in 'The Chance of a Night Time'
singing 'Leave the Rest to Nature" and 'I'm So Used to You Now'. More Bowlly under Ray Noble in
Big Bands.
References: 1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6.
Timeline.
Sessions: DAHR,
guitar.
Discographies: 1,
2,
3,
4.
Compilations:
'The Formative Years' 1928-32 by Gold Remasters 2003,
'The Al Bowlly Story' 1928-41
by Gold Remasters 2003,
'Al Bowlly with Lew Stone and His Band' 1932-38 by
Ace of Clubs 1964, 'The Essential Collection' on Avid Entertainment
AVC 905 2007.
Archives.
HMR Project. Per below, Bowlly plays banjo on 'The House Where the Shutters Are Green'.
He plays guitar with Jimmy Mesene on tracks in 1941. Al Bowlly 1926 The House Where the Shutters Are Green With Jimmy Liquime Composition: Chris Webb Al Bowlly 1927 Composition: Irving Berlin 1926 For the Broadway musical 'Betsy' Al Bowlly 1928 Composition: Irving King/Ted Shapiro Irving King = Jimmy Campbell/Reg Connelly Composition: Gus Kahn Al Bowlly 1931 Music: Richard Whiting/Harry Akst Lyrics: Gus Kahn Al Bowlly 1932 Composition: Gerald Marks/Seymour Simons 1931 Composition: Joe Young Composition: Mistric Artelelus/Bing Crosby Please Don't Mention It Vocal: Anona Winn Composition: Harry Pepper Composition: George & Ira Gershwin Al Bowlly 1933 Composition: Cole Porter for 'Nymph Errant' 1933 Composition: Sam Coslow/Arthur Johnston Al Bowlly 1934 Composition: Cole Porter for 'Gay Divorce' 1932 Composition: Ralph Rainger/Leo Robin Al Bowlly 1935 Composition: Spencer Williams Composition: Albert Von Tilzer/Ted Fio Rito/Harry MacPherson Al Bowlly 1936 Composition: Benny Davis/Ted Fio Rito/J. Fred Coots Al Bowlly 1938 Composition: Victor Schertzinger Al Bowlly 1939 Composition: James Van Heusen Al Bowlly 1941 Nicky the Geek (Is Gone) Guitar duet with Jimmy Mesene When That Man Is Dead and Gone Guitar duet with Jimmy Mesene Composition: Irving Berlin
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| Born in 1901 in Brooklyn,
Adelaide Hall's
career on Broadway is traced to as early as a bridesmaid's role in 'My
Little Friend' in May of
1913 at the New Amsterdam Theatre
[1,
2].
Studying at the Pratt Institute as a teenager, by 1918 her father and
sister had died. She appeared in multiple stage productions (: 'Shuffle
Along', 'Chocolate Kiddies', et al), getting
married and touring to Europe along the way, before recording with Duke
Ellington in Camden, NJ, on 26 Oct 1927: 'Creole Love Call' (Victor
21137),
'The Blues I Love to Sing' (Victor 21490) [Lord's]. 'Chicago Stomp Down' (Okeh
8675) followed on 3 Nov. The next year she
appeared on Broadway in 'Blackbirds of 1928' with Bill "Bojangles"
Robinson. That role made her a big name of a sudden, followed by another
with Robinson in 1930 in 'Brown Buddies'. She toured in both Europe and
America in 1931. Returning to New York in 1932, she and her husband (since
1924, also her business manager) purchased an estate in Larchmont, New
York, thought to be too high end for black folks. She was threatened with
eviction and her new home set afire, adding to causes to later move to London
in 1938. In 1933 she toured America again (including the World's Fair in
Chicago) and was a featured star in the 'Stormy Weather Revue' at Harlem's
Cotton Club. The next year she appeared at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in
'Chocolate Soldiers', then again at the Cotton Club in 'The Cotton Club
Parade' (24th edition). Hall arrived in Paris in 1935 where
Josephine Baker
had been performing since 1925, another American export to Europe.
During World War II Hall entertained troops with the USO and its British
equivalent, ENSA. After the war, Hall worked radio and television for the
BBC and performed as a cabaret singer. She began working
across the Atlantic in the States again in 1980, eventually appearing at
Carnegie Hall in 1988. Her final public appearance was at Carnegie Hall in
1992. Not having mentioned film, Hall may have appeared in the silent reel
of 'A Son of Satan' as early as 1924 [IMDb unconfirmed]. In 1932 she
assumed an uncredited role in 'Dancers in the Dark', and appeared in movies and television
numerously thereafter throughout her career. Hall died on 7 November the next year in London. References:
1,
2.
Discographies: 1,
2,
3,
4.
Compilations: 'The Enduring Charm of Adelaide Hall: Original Recordings
1927-1944' by Delta Bygone Days 2011.
Hall in film and television: 1,
2. Archives and
Collections: *.
Other profiles: 1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6. Adelaide Hall 1927 Composition: Duke Ellington Composition: Duke Ellington/Bubber Miley/Rudy Jackson Composition: Duke Ellington Adelaide Hall 1928 Music: Jimmy McHugh Lyrics: Dorothy Fields Adelaide Hall 1933 With the Mills Blue Rhythm Band Composition: Duke Ellington/Nick Kenny Adelaide Hall 1935 Music: Harry Revel Lyrics: Mack Gordon Film: 'All-Coloured Vaudeville Show' Adelaide Hall 1937 Composition: Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler 1933 Composition: Harry Revel/Mack Gordon 1937 For the film 'Wake Up and Live' With Kai Ewens Music: Richard Rodgers 1937 Lyrics: Lorenz Hart For the musical 'Babes in Arms' Adelaide Hall 1940 T'ain't What You Do It's the Way That Cha Do It Composition: Melvin Sy Oliver/James Trummy Young 1939 Film: 'Behind the Blackout' Adelaide Hall 1947 Film Adelaide Hall 1948 Film Composition: See Wikipedia Film Composition: Traditional black spiritual Published by Wallis Willis 1862 First recording: Fisk Jubilee Singers 1909 Adelaide Hall 1989 I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby Live performance Music: Jimmy McHugh Lyrics: Dorothy Fields 1928 for Charles Lindbergh
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Adelaide Hall
Source: Black Kudos |
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Born in 1913 in Louisville, Kentucky, Helen Humes was yet a student, age thirteen, when she sang at an amateur talent contest in 1926, there noticed by blues guitarist, Sylvester Weaver, who helped set her up w her first recording session on 30 April 1927 [DAHR, Laird/Rust]. Those were her own compositions, 'Black Cat Blues' and 'A Worried Woman's Blues', issued on Okeh 8467 w pianist unidentified. Two other tracks went unreleased: 'Jam Up Too Tight' and 'Stomping Weaver's Blues'. Some sources have Humes w Lonnie Johnson rather than Weaver on those, possibly w pianist, DeLoise Searcy or JC Johnson. Sources agree on her next session on 26 November of '27 also in St. Louis, placing her w JC Johnson on 'If Papa Has Outside Lovin' (OKeh 8545), 'Do What You Did Last Night' (OKeh 8545) and 'Everybody Does It Now' (OKeh 8529). 'Cross Eyed Blues' (OKeh 8825) and 'Garlic Blues' (OKeh 8825) went down w Weaver and guitarist, Walter Beasley. They also backed her on guitar the next day for 'Alligator Blues' (OKeh 8529), 'Nappy Headed Blues' (OKeh 8674) and 'Race Horse Blues' (OKeh 8825). That was the last she saw of the music industry for several years as she continued w the normal life of attending school, graduating and working at odd jobs such as waitressing. Browse Biography has her taking a trip for leisure w friends to Buffalo, New York, in 1935 that became an invitation to work w Al Sears upon singing a few songs at the Spider Web cabaret. Come 1936 they were playing the Cotton Club in Cincinnati where Humes' big break arrived in 1937, acquiring backing by Harry James' big band on recordings that year. 'Jubilee'/'I Can Dream, Can't I?' (Brunswick 8038) went down on 1 December [Lord's]. Come 'Song of the Wanderer' (Brunswick 8067) and 'It's the Dreamer in Me' (Brunswick 8055) on 5 Jan of '38. She joined the Count Basie Orchestra in March for the next four years. Lord's has her backing Basie on unidentified titles on 29 May 1938 per a remote broadcast by radio WNEW at the Carnival of Swing Festival on Randall's Island in NYC. Those transcriptions saw later inclusion on Savory NJMH 0113 and Mosaic MD6 266. Lord's begins its account of Humes leading on vocals w Basie on 3 June in NYC to spread along 'Blues with Helen' and 'Song of the Wanderer' neither issued until years later on Nostalgia 7639 (a Lester Young compilation) and assorted Vanguard compilations. Come a long string of radio engagements to 16 Nov of '38 when Basie supported her on 'Dark Rapture' (Decca 2212). Her male counterpart while w Basie was Jimmy Rushing. Leaving Basie's hard-driving band in '42, she worked nightclubs in NYC until moving to Los Angeles in 1944 where she began recording soundtracks and appearing in films. 1945 saw the release of her highly popular composition 'Be-Baba-Leba' (Philo 106). Another of her best-selling titles was 'Million Dollar Secret' in 1950 on Modern 779. In 1956 Humes toured Australia with Red Norvo, returning there in 1962 and '64. Humes appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1959, the Monterey Jazz Festival in '60 and '62, and toured Europe with the initial American Folk Blues Festival in 1962. In 1967 she retired, taking a job in a factory that manufactured ammunition. In 1973 she was encouraged to appear at the Newport Jazz Festival again, which by hook and crook landed her in Europe to perform and record in France before appearing at the Cookery in NYC from 1974 to 1977. The seventies saw Humes returning to work in Europe on occasion, before recording the 1980 album, 'Helen', in NYC (Muse MR5233). Lord traces her to as late as September 1980 on tour to Japan toward the albums, 'Aurex Jazz Festival '80 - Live Special' (Eastworld EWJ-80253) and 'Aurex Jazz Festival '80 - Gentlemen of Swing' (Eastworld EWJ-80188). She there performed with Teddy Wilson, Milt Hinton and Shelly Manne. Humes died of cancer on 9 Sep 1981 in Santa Monica, California [1, 2]. Another of Humes' important musical associations had been Norman Granz, she featuring w Jazz at the Philharmonic during five seasons. She had also worked with Nat King Cole. References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Discos: 1, 2, 3. Compilations: 'An Introduction to Helen Humes: Her Best Recordings' 1927-47 on Best of Jazz 4058, Chronological Classics 1945-47, Chronological Classics 1948-50. Archives. HMR Project. Helen Humes 1927 Composition: Helen Humes Composition: Helen Humes Helen Humes 1937 With Harry James Music: Sammy Fain Lyrics: Irving Kahal Helen Humes 1938 With Harry James Composition: Neil Moret (Charles Daniels) Helen Humes 1939 Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea With Count Basie Composition: Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler Helen Humes 1941 With Don Byas & Thelonious Monk Composition: Hoagy Carmichael/Mitchell Parish Helen Humes 1942 Composition: Leonard Feather Helen Humes 1945 Composition: Helen Humes Helen Humes 1949 Composition: Helen Humes/Joe Williams Helen Humes 1950 Composition: Helen Humes Helen Humes 1962 The Blues Ain't Nothin' but a Woman American Folk and Blues Festival Piano: Memphis Slim Guitar: T-Bone Walker Composition: J. Mao Williams
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Helen Humes Source: Data B |
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Born Mildred Rinker in 1907 in Tekoa, Washington, Mildred Bailey kept the last name of her early husband, Ted Bailey, because she thought it have a more American appeal than Rinker. Growing up in Idaho w a father who played fiddle at square dances, as a young lady she joined a revue that toured the west Coast, she ending up doing radio in California at KMTR while working at a Bakersfield speakeasy called The Swede's. It was Bing Crosby who introduced Bailey to Paul Whiteman, with whom she first performed for radio in 1929 (a version of 'Moanin' Low'). That same year found her making her first recordings in New York City [DAHR, Lord's], 'What Kind of Man Is You' with Eddie Lang issued in the UK on Parlophone R840. That was followed on 8 May 1930 by 'I Like the Things You Do' (OKeh 41421) with Frank Trumbauer. She isn't thought to have been originally credited on either. Come 12 Jan 1931 she had backing by Jimmie Noone in Chicago toward 'He's Not Worth Your Tears'/'Travellin' All Alone' (Vocalion 1580). As a major jazz singer, Bailey would be found working with a number of big names. Her first recordings with the Dorsey Brothers were on April 8, 1933 with trumpeter, Bunny Berigan: two takes of 'Is That Religion?' and two of 'Harlem Lullaby'. She would lay tracks with both Jimmy and Tommy in the forties. Come her first session on February 2, 1934, with Benny Goodman, 'Junk Man' among others. Goodman was Bailey's main vehicle into 1939, also featuring with him in the forties. Bailey's most important collaborator was her third husband, Red Norvo, with whom she began working in 1935 when he joined her Swing Band in NYC, first recording together on November 20: 'When Day Is Done'. Norvo and Bailey were billed as "Mr. and Mrs. Swing". Bailey died in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1951 of heart failure largely due to diabetes. More Mildred Bailey under Red Norvo in Swing Jazz 1. References: 1, 2, 3, 4. Sessions: DAHR; Laird; Lord's; ODP: 1, 2; also in discos by Rust for 1931. Catalogs: 1, 2, 3. Compilations: 'Mrs. Swing' 1929-42 by Proper Records 2003; 'The Mildred Bailey Radio Shows: Original 1945 Broadcasts' by Storyville Records 2004. Bailey in visual media. Archives. Other profiles: 1, 2. Mildred Bailey 1929 Composition: Hoagy Carmichael Mildred Bailey 1930 Sax: Frank Trumbauer Composition: Milton Ager/Jack Yellen Mildred Bailey 1931 With the Casa Loma Orchestra Composition: Benny Carter/Irving Mills With Paul Whiteman Composition: Harry Woods Mildred Bailey 1932 With Paul Whiteman Composition: Hoagy Carmichael Mildred Bailey 1935 With her Alley Cats Composition: John & Reb Spikes 1919 Mildred Bailey 1938 Vibraphone: Red Norvo Music: Saul Chaplin Lyrics: Sammy Cahn Vibraphone: Red Norvo Composition: Burton Lane/Frank Loesser Composition: Ralph Rainger/Leo Robin Mildred Bailey 1941 With the Delta Rhythm Boys Composition: Jack Lawrence/Abner Silver
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Mildred Bailey Source: WBGO |
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Jimmy Rushing Photo: Associated Press Source: Keep Swinging
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Born in 1901 in Oklahoma City, though more famous as a vocalist, Jimmy (James) Rushing [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] was a pianist as well. He began traveling the Midwest in 1923 as an itinerant blues vocalist. He worked briefly with Jelly Roll Morton in California before joining Walter Page and the Blue Devils, with whom he made his first recording in Kansas City in 1929: 'Blue Devil Blues' (Vocalion 1463) [Lord's]. Rushing later joined Count Basie in 1935 and remained with him until Basie dismantled that band in 1950. They would reunite on occasion in the fifties and sixties. Rushing had first encountered Basie when the latter hired onto the band of Bennie Moten in 1930 as a pianist, 'Won't You Be My Baby' (Victor 23028), Rushing's first track with Basie in Moten's operation [to go by Lord's]. His first tracks with Basie's band were in the latter's Smith-Jones Incorporated on November 9, 1936: 'Evenin'' and 'Boogie Woogie'. Rushing released his first album, 'The Jazz Odyssey of Jimmy Rushing Esq', in 1956. In 1958 he toured the United Kingdom with trumpeter, Humphrey Lyttelton. He passed away on 8 June 1972 in NYC of leukemia. Sessions at DAHR. Discos: 1, 2, 3. Compilations: 'The Essential Jimmy Rushing' by Vanguard 1974; 'Jazz & Blues Collection' by Editions Atlas 1996; w Basie: MCA, SMS. Rushing in visual media. Jimmy Rushing 1929 With Walter Page & the Blue Devils Composition: Walter Page Jimmy Rushing 1937 With Count Basie Composition: Basie/Eddie Durham/Rushing Jimmy Rushing 1938 With Count Basie Composition: Basie/Rushing With Count Basie Composition: Buster Smith With Count Basie Composition: Arthur Terker/Harry Jentes/Harry Pease Jimmy Rushing 1939 With Count Basie Composition: Basie/Harry Edison/Rushing Jimmy Rushing 1941 With Count Basie Composition: Rushing Jimmy Rushing 1944 With Count Basie Composition: Rushing Jimmy Rushing 1956 With the Buck Clayton Orchestra Composition: Hoagy Carmichael Jimmy Rushing 1957 With Count Basie Composition: Andy Gibson/Basie/Rushing Jimmy Rushing 1958 With Benny Goodman Music: Arthur Johnston 1936 Lyrics: Johnny Burke Jimmy Rushing 1962 Live film performance Composition: Basie/Rushing Live film performance Composition: Basie/Eddie Durham/Rushing Live film performance Composition: Donald Heywood/Will Marion Cook
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Ray Eberle Source: Mike Kaba |
Born in 1919 in Hoosick Falls, New York,
Ray Eberle
[1,
2]
was the younger brother of singer Bob
Eberly by two and a half years.
Eberly sang with the
Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra. As for Eberle, Tom Lord's
discography has Ray first recording with the
Casa Loma Orchestra (CLO) in
NYC on February 11, 1930, performing alto sax on 'China Girl' (Okeh 41373) and 'San Sue
Strut' (Okeh 41373). This, however, is contested. Lord lists Ray's only vocal with the CLO on April 18, 1930: 'Leave It That Way'.
That is also contested, Rust (w Laird and Shaw)
have that sung by Jack Richmond instead (DAHR going by Rust/Laird). The
example below sounds more like Richmond than Eberle to me.
Lord's traces Eberle w the CLO to December 6 that year, yielding such as
'Alexander's Ragtime Band', 'Overnight' and 'Little Did I Know',
Richmond's vocals on the last. That is also contested, that is, Eberle
definitely blew alto sax in the CLO in 1930, but what he recorded with
that orchestra is questionable. Lord
doesn't pick up Eberle again until a session with Irving Aaronson on
October 12, 1933, on alto sax ('Marching Along Together' et al), recording
with Aaronson until April of '35 ('Jazzaroo' et al). Eberle's big move as a vocalist came with Glenn Miller,
recording 'Don't Wake Up My Heart' on May 23 of 1938 in NYC. That was
followed on June 18 with a live radio broadcast from the Paradise
Restaurant for NBC, 'On the Sentimental Side' among others. Memorable in
1939 were Eberle's NBC Meadowbrook broadcasts with
Miller from Cedar Grove, New Jersey in March, 'Sometime' from their
last session there on April 18. Eberle
appeared with Miller in the
films, 'Sun Valley Serenade' and 'Orchestra Wives' in '41 and '42. Miller
terminated Ray in 1942 for being late to a rehearsal. Eberle then sang
for Gene Krupa, first recording
with Krupa during a CBS
radio broadcast from the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles on November
13, 1942: 'Cow Cow Boogie', 'Rose Ann of Charing Cross' and 'Knock Me a
Kiss'. Eberle held various sessions with
Krupa
while touring until their last on February 9, 1943, yielding 'Knock Me a
Kiss' and 'Stuff in Your Cuff'. He isn't found recording again until 1945
in NYC with his own band, 3 Men & a Chord, 'At Last' among 14 titles from
that session to be issued by the McGregor label. He served in the U.S.
Army in Chicago in 1944-45. He led his
own orchestra on recordings for V-Disc in latter '46 or early
'47: 'Stella By Starlight' and 'It's the Same Old Dream'. Having first
performed with Tex Beneke in Glenn Miller's
operation, Eberle would sing for Beneke
in the fifties and sixties. In 1970 he would tour with
Beneke. Eberle died in Georgia on
25 August 1979 within two years of his brother, Bob
Eberly, who followed in Nov 1981.
He sings with the Glenn Miller Orchestra in all tracks below unless
otherwise noted. Discographies: 1,
2,
3,
4.
Eberle in visual media.
Other profiles: 1,
2. Ray Eberle 1930 Casa Loma Orchestra Alto sax: Eberle contested Composition: Donald Heywood/Will Marion Cook Casa Loma Orchestra Vocal is likely Jack Richmond Alto sax: Eberle contested Music: Fred Fisher Lyrics: Andy Rice Casa Loma Orchestra Alto sax: Eberle contested Composition: Joe Mannone Ray Eberle 1934 With Irving Aaronson Vocal: Ernie Mathias Composition: Johnny Mercer/Matt Malneck Ray Eberle 1938 Live at the Paradise Restaurant Ray Eberle 1939 Composition: Ralph Rainger/Leo Robin Composition: Victor Herbert/Al Dubin Composition: See Internet Archive Composition: Georges Boulanger/Jimmy Kennedy Ray Eberle 1940 Composition: Hoagy Carmichael/Ned Washington Ray Eberle 1941 Composition: Cole Porter Ray Eberle 1942 Film: 'Orchestra Wives' With Lynn Bari Composition: Harry Warren/Mack Gordon Ray Eberle 1945 With Paul Whiteman Music: Walter Kent Lyrics: Kim Gannon For the film musical 'Earl Carroll Vanities'
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The Mills Brothers were born to parents who owned a barbershop, so decided to form a barbershop quartet. Propitiously, they had four sons, all born in Piqua, Ohio, to do just that: Donald (lead tenor), Harry (baritone), Herbert (tenor) and John Jr. (bass vocals and guitar). At first called the Four Kings of Harmony, the quartet began singing in churches, then advanced to theatres, supper clubs, music halls and tent shows. They got their first big break at radio station WLW in Cincinnati in 1931, and with Duke Ellington briefly after that. The quartet released its first tune, 'Tiger Rag', in 1931, that recorded in October for Brunswick (6197) [1, 2, 3, 4]. They also recorded with the Boswell Sisters and Bing Crosby in '31 [Lord's]. They first appeared in film in 1932 in 'The Big Broadcast'. In 1934 they became the first black entertainers to perform for British royalty (Queen Mary and King George V). Upon their return to England in 1936, John Jr. died of pneumonia on 23 Jan. He was replaced by guitarist, Norman Brown, for the next three decades. Junior's father, John Sr., filled in on bass and tuba. Starting in 1939 the Brothers toured Australia and South America. By the time they returned to the States in 1941 their major rival, the Ink Spots, had become a force with which to contend. Harry was drafted about that time and replaced by Gene Smith for a year. John Sr. quit performing in 1957, when the Mills Brothers continued as a trio, until Harry's death in 1982. Donald and Herbert continued as a duo until the latter died in 1989, at which time Donald began performing with his son John III. Donald died of pneumonia in 1999, whence John III continued the Mills Brothers' name with Elmer Hopper. Like Ella Fitzgerald with whom the Mills Brothers recorded, they were notable for scat singing. Among others with whom the group issued titles was Louis Armstrong. Per Find a Grave John Senior died on 8 Dec 1967 (having retired in '58). Norman Brown followed on 19 Aug 1969, Harry on 28 June 1982, Herbert on 12 April 1989 and Donald on 13 Nov 1999. More Mills Brothers in Doo Wop, as well as similar vocal groups about their period like the Ink Spots, the Delta Rhythm Boys and the Brown Dots. References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Sessions 1934-57. Discographies: 1, 2, 3, 4. Mills Brothers in film: 1, 2, 3. Mills Brothers 1931 Composition: Original Dixieland Jass Band First recorded by ODJB in 1917 Music: Billy Meyers/Elmer Schoebel 1924 Lyrics: Gus Kahn/Ernie Erdman Mills Brothers 1934 Music: Burton Lane Lyrics: Harold Adamson For the film 'Strictly Dynamite' Mills Brothers 1957 From 'Lysistrata' 1902 Music: Paul Lincke Lyrics Geman: Heinz Bolten-Backers Lyrics English: Lilla Cayley Robinson Mills Brothers 1961 Composition: Sy Oliver 'Jack Benny Program' 'Jack Benny Program' Composition: Sidney Arodin/Hoagy Carmichael 1930 Mills Brothers 1967 'Dean Martin Show'
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Mills Brothers Photo: Otto Bettmann/Corbis Archives Source: Hit of the Week
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Pickens Sisters Source: New York Swing Jazz |
The Pickens Sisters
[Wikipedia] were one of the four
most popular female trios during the swing era: the
Three X Sisters, the Boswells and the
later
Andrews Sisters. They consisted of Helen
(b '10), Jane (b '07) and Patti
Pickens (b '14). Having studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia at
age 14 [Ruhlmann/All Music], Jane was the driving force and arranger for
the trio. A fourth sister, Grace, was the trio's manager. Born in Georgia,
Jane and her sisters followed their parents to Manhattan about the time
they made their first recordings on 14 July of 1931
with the Ben Selvin Orchestra: 'Do the New York' (Columbia 2499-D) and 'My
Sweet Tooth Says I Wanna'/'Nobody Loves No Baby (Like My Baby Loves Me)'
(Columbia 2501-D). Per DAHR [1,
2] going by Rust, the sisters recorded a
couple more tracks for Columbia to unknown fate on 21 Sep: 'Blue Kentucky
Moon' and 'The kiss That You've Forgotten'. Come unissued tracks for
Victor on 29 Jan 1932: 'When the Blue of the Night' and 'Learning'. On 26
Feb of '32 they spread along 'Was That the Human Thing to Do?'/'Good-Night
Moon' (Victor 22929). The 21st of March brought 'Too Many Tears'/'Somebody
Loves You' (Victor 22965).Their third name release went down 6 April for
'Dream Sweetheart'/'Lawd, You Made the Night Too Long' (Victor 22975). The
Pickens worked in radio while recording to as late as 11 Oct 1934 toward
issues like 'Be Still, My Heart' (Victor 24751) and 'Love Is Just Around
the Corner' (Victor 24815). In the meantime they had appeared in the 1933
film, 'Sitting Pretty', and on Broadway per 'Thumbs Up!' running from Dec
'34 to May of '35. Come 7 July of 1936 they performed for an audience of
three television sets per the first television broadcast by NBC/RCA from
the Empire State Building
[IMDb].
By 1937 all the sisters had married and the group became history. Jane was the
only sister to continue a career in music, such as appearing in the 'Ziegfield
Follies of 1936' and releasing the album, 'Jane Pickens Sings', in 1940.
She also studied at the Fontainebleau in France and at Juilliard. Retiring
in 1954, a succession of wealthy husbands enabled her to engage in
philanthropy while pursuing still life painting. Living plush on Park Avenue in
Manhattan, she died 21 Feb 1992 in Newport, Rhode Island. Helen had died
in 1984. Patti followed in 1995. Though not the major entity that
were the Boswells,
it's said that in the brief several years that the Pickens Sisters
existed they earned themselves a million dollars. The Pickens Sisters in
film.
In theatre: 1,
2. At Discogs: 1,
2. Pickens Sisters 1931 With Ben Selvin Music: Sam H. Stept Lyrics: Joe Young/Sidney Clare With Ben Selvin Composition: Walter Donaldson Pickens Sisters 1932 Music: Harry Warren Lyrics: Al Dubin Was That the Human Thing to Do? Music: Sammy Fain Lyrics: Joe Young Pickens Sisters 1933 With Paul Whiteman Composition: Cole Porter Pickens Sisters 1934 Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? Music: Harry Revel Lyrics: Mack Gordon For the film 'Sitting Pretty'
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Born in 1908 in Gibson, Oklahoma, Lee Wiley [1, 2, 3] was a contralto who left home as a teenager to begin a career in music in New York City. DAHR has her in session with the Paramount Pictures Motion Picture Orchestra (MPO) as early as 27 July of 1928 for an unissued recording of 'The Sawdust Paradise'. Numerous trials of that went down until a master was achieved on 30 July w Wiley singing the solo. Paramount released the silent version of the lost film, 'The Sawdust Paradise', in Sep 1928 [1, 2]. The fate of Wiley's recording w the MPO is unknown. Eventually signing up with violinist and bandleader Leo Reisman, her first recording with him per DAHR and Lord's was 15 June 1931: 'Take It from Me' (Victor 22757). Come 'Time on My Hands' unissued on 19 Oct, issued (Victor 22839) on the 26th. Come 15 June for 'Got the South in My Soul' (Victor 24048). A radio transcription was made of that was made with Rudy Vallée and his Connecticut Yankees on 13 Oct '32, getting issued in 1977 and '80 on the album, 'On the Air' (Totem 1021). Come Victor Young and his Serenaders on 21 Jan for 'You're an Old Smoothie' (Brunswick 6484) and 'I'll Leave These Reminders for You' (Merritt 24). 'A Tree Was a Tree' went down on 24 Feb possibly w pianist, Joe Mareso, issued years later in 1991 on the compilation, 'The Complete Young Lee Wiley 1931-1937' (Vintage Jazz Classics VJC-1023-2). That also holds songs performed in her next session with the Dorseys on 7 March: 'You've Got Me Crying Again' and 'I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues'. Wiley also worked w the Casa Loma Orchestra and Paul Whiteman's. Other big names w whom she bumped shoulders were Bunny Berigan and Max Kaminsky. Her most significant musical associate was guitarist, Eddie Condon. Her first recording with Condon is thought to have been on November 5, 1938, yielding 'Sugar' from a performance for BBC at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. They would record with Fats Waller ten days later with Kaminsky's orchestra. They made some private recordings in Hollywood in 1939: 'You're So Indiff'rent', 'All I Remember Is You' and 'I Can't Give You Anything But Love'. Wiley started recording with Condon's bands in 1942 ('Stormy Weather' et al), heavily in '44 and '45, again in '49 for television. In 1954 she appeared at the first Newport Jazz Festival with Bobby Hackett. In 1963 she starred in the film, 'Something About Lee Wiley'. 1971 witnessed her recording her last album, 'Back Home Again', for Bill Borden's Monmouth-Evergreen label. She last performed in 1972 at Carnegie Hall where the Newport Jazz Festival had that year been temporarily relocated. Wiley died three years later in December 1975 in New York City. Discographies: 1, 2, 3. Wiley in visual media. Lee Wiley forum. Other profiles: 1, 2, 3. Per 'Motherless Child' 1934 below, that was a traditional slave spiritual performed by the Fisk Jubilee Singers in the 7th decade of the 19th century, published by William E. Barton in 1899. Lee Wiley 1931 With Leo Reisman Composition: Thomas Fats Waller/Stanley Adams With Leo Reisman Composition: Harold Adamson/Mack Gordon/Vincent Youmans Lee Wiley 1932 With Leo Reisman Composition: Lee Wiley/Ned Washington/Victor Young Lee Wiley 1933 I Got a Right to Sing the Blues With Victor Young Composition: Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler With Victor Young Composition: Buddy DeSylva/Nacio Herb Brown/Richard Whiting Lee Wiley 1934 Composition: WC Handy/Martha Koenig/Spencer Williams Music: Ben Oakland Lyrics: Jack Murray Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child Composition: See above Composition: Walter Donaldson Lee Wiley 1936 Composition: Cole Porter Lee Wiley 1939 Composition: George & Ira Gershwin Piano: Fats Waller Composition: George & Ira Gershwin Lee Wiley 1940 Music: Harold Arlen Lyrics: Yip Harburg Lee Wiley 1944 With Eddie Condon Music: Jimmy McHugh Lyrics: Dorothy Fields With Leo Reisman Composition: George & Ira Gershwin Lee Wiley 1950 Composition: George & Ira Gershwin Lee Wiley 1951 Composition: Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Lee Wiley 1952 Baby Won't You Please Come Home With Henry Red Allen Composition: Clarence Williams/Charles Warfield Recorded by Bessie Smith 1923 Lee Wiley 1957 From the Land of the Sky-Blue Water Music: Charles Wakefield Cadman 1909 Lyrics: Nelle Richmond Eberhart Composition: Don George/Ed Wilcox
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Lee Wiley Source: Phoenix Muskogee |
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Billie Holiday Source: Sandrobian |
Born Eleanora Fagan in 1915 in Philadelphia, jazz singer Billie Holiday (Lady Day) began her recording career at age eighteen (1933) with Benny Goodman. That track was 'Your Mothers Son-In-Law' [Lord]. Holiday had become a prostitute in Harlem at age fourteen ($5 per, which wasn't cheap at the time), her mother also a brothel worker [*]. Upon beginning to sing in Harlem nightclubs she changed her last name to that of her father's performing name, a jazz guitarist, Clarence Holiday, who had abandoned her at birth. She first collaborated in 1929 with tenor sax man, Kenneth Hollan. While working a slew of clubs in NYC she happened to reconnect with her father in 1931, he working with Fletcher Henderson at the time. Her first two recordings with Goodman, 'Your Mother's Son-In-Law', 'Keep On Doin' What You're Doin'', 'Riffin' the Scotch', etc., weren't big sellers (300 and 5000 copies respectively), but that worried not John Hammond, the record producer largely responsible for her discovery and initiation to the greater jazz scene. As he had with Goodman, Hammond paired Holiday with pianist and bandleader, Teddy Wilson, in 1935. Their first recordings together that year were 'I Wished on the Moon', 'What a Little Moonlight Can Do', 'Miss Brown to You' and 'A Sunbonnet Blue'. Holiday also appeared in her first film in 1935, Duke Ellington's 'Symphony in Black'. Holiday also released titles in her own name apart from Wilson, her first session as Billie Holiday and Her Orchestra on June 15, 1937, those titles: 'Me, Myself and I', 'A Sailboat in the Moonlight', 'Born to Love' and 'Without Your Love'. Other than Wilson, top name musicians with whom Holiday worked in the latter thirties included Artie Shaw who first recorded in her orchestra July 10, 1936 in NYC, 'No Regrets' among others. They would be found on numerous titles together, including with Shaw's orchestra. into the fifties. Come Lester Young with whom she first recorded with Wilson on January 25, 1937 in NYC ('He Ain't Got Rhythm' among four) and be her continuous collaborator for years to come. Count Basie swung by in 1937, they first recording together at a Savoy Ballroom radio broadcast on June 30 ('The You and Me That Used to Be', etc.). They would record numerously together until 'Stormy Weather' at Carnegie Hall on May 6, 1955. It was 1940 while performing at Kelly's Stable when she began wearing her trademark white gardenias. Having singed her hair with a curling iron, she was purchased a large white gardenia from a nearby nightclub by another performer, also a singer, and the damage rendered lovely. By the latter forties Holiday was commanding more than a thousand dollars week to play nightclubs. Good thing, as she was largely dependent on nightclub performances to make a living, earning royalties for nigh nothing until signing to Decca in 1944. Holiday also had a taste for heroin, which got her incarcerated in 1947 for several months at Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia on a narcotics charge. The month of her release, March 1948, she played Carnegie Hall. After her first European tour in 1954, Holiday published her memoir, 'Lady Sings the Blues', in 1956 (ghostwritten by William Duffy). To accompany the book she issued the LP, 'Lady Sings the Blues' the same year, also playing two more engagements at Carnegie Hall. In early March of 1959 Holiday made her final studio recordings. Intended for release on an album called 'Billie Holiday', it was retitled to 'Last Recording' upon its release in July. From April 20-26 she recorded tracks with a trio of Mal Waldron, Champ Jones and Roy Haynes in Greenwich Village which saw release in 1978 on 'Giants 3'. On May 25 she put away unissued versions of 'Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do' and 'I Can't Get Started with a trio of Waldron, Tony Scott and Papa Jo Jones. It was reportedly yet May when Holiday was taken to the hospital with liver and heart disease, where she was arrested a second time for narcotics and her room placed under police guard until her death a couple weeks later on July 17 [1, 2]. Albeit Holiday spent no small sum on drugs during her time, she died a damaged woman due less to chemicals than racial abuse by white folk, and financial swindling to the tune of a total cash worth of only $750.70 at the time of her death [*]. Among Holiday's most memorable recordings were 'Strange Fruit' (1939), 'God Bless the Child' (1941) and 'Lady Sings the Blues' (1956). Among her own compositions were 'Billie's Blues' ('36), 'Long Gone Blues' ('47) and 'Stormy Blues' ('55). More samples of Billie Holiday can be found under Teddy Wilson in Big Band Swing Jazz. Also see pianist, Jimmy Rowles, in Early Modern Jazz Piano. References encyclopedic: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; musical: 1, 2, 3, 4; statistics. Chronology of major events. Musical associates, arrangers and duet partners. Sessionographies: 1, 2, 3, Lord's. Discographies: 1, 2, 3, 4. Compilations: 1, 2. Song reviews: Stuart Nicholson; Alexa Peters. Holiday on Broadway. In other visual media. Further reading: 'Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon' by Donald Clarke Da Capo Press 2000), 'Billie Holiday: The Musician & the Myth' by John Szwed: 1, 2; drugs and: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; the microphone and; Lester Young and; other: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. All tracks below for year 1959 are with bandleader, Ray Ellis. Billie Holiday 1933 With Benny Goodman Music: Alberta Nichols Lyrics: Mann Holiner With Benny Goodman Composition: Fred Buck/Benny Goodman Dick McDonough/Johnny Mercer Billie Holiday 1935 With Benny Goodman & Teddy Wilson Music: Ralph Rainger Lyrics: Dorothy Parker With Benny Goodman & Teddy Wilson Music: Richard Whiting/Ralph Rainger Lyrics: Leo Robin What a Little Moonlight Can Do With Benny Goodman & Teddy Wilson Composition: Harry Woods Billie Holiday 1936 With Bunny Berigan Composition: Holiday Music: Gus Arnheim/Abe Lyman Lyrics: Arthur Freed Music: Arthur Johnston Lyrics: Johnny Burke Music: George Gershwin 1934 Lyrics: DuBose Heyward For the 1935 opera 'Porgy and Bess' Billie Holiday 1937 ('She's Funny That Way') Music: Neil Moret Lyrics: Richard Whiting From 'Little Buttercup' 1931 Music: Matty Malneck/Frank Signorelli Lyrics added by Gus Kahn: First issue: Mildred Bailey w Paul Whiteman 1932 Billie Holiday 1938 Music: John Frederick Coots Lyrics: Haven Gillespie Billie Holiday 1939 Composition: Luther Henderson/Carmen McRae Composition: Abel Meeropol Billie Holiday 1941 Composition: Holiday/Arthur Herzog Jr. Billie Holiday 1942 Nee 'Hungarian Suicide Song' Composition: Rezső Seress 1933 Billie Holiday 1944 Composition: Holiday Composition: Jimmy Davis/Jimmy Sherman/Roger Ramirez Music: Salvador Tutti Camarata Lyrics: Bob Russell Billie Holiday 1946 Composition: Irene Higginbotham/Ervin Drake/Dan Fisher Billie Holiday 1947 Composition: Louis Alter/Eddie DeLange Film: 'New Orleans' Billie Holiday 1948 Music: George Gershwin Lyrics: Ira Gershwin Billie Holiday 1950 Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do Composition: Porter Grainger/Everett Robbins Billie Holiday 1952 Composition: Rube Bloom/Ted Koehler Music: Will Hudson/Irving Mills Lyrics: Eric Maschwitz Music: Jack Strachey Lyrics: Eddie DeLange Composition: Jerome Kern/Otto Harbach Billie Holiday 1954 With Count Basie Composition: Jimmy Davis/Jimmy Sherman/Roger Ramirez Billie Holiday 1956 Carnegie Hall Music: Sammy Fain Lyrics: Irving Kahal Composition: Holiday/Herbie Nichols Music: Harold Arlen Lyrics: Johnny Mercer Billie Holiday 1957 With Lester Young Composition: Holiday I Didn't Know What Time It Was Composition: Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Billie Holiday 1959 From the LP 'Last Recording': Composition: Cole Porter Composition: Walter Hirsch/Fred Rose Composition: Ruth Lowe Composition: Al Stillman/Robert Allen Composition: Sam Coslow/Arthur Johnston Music: Benton Overstreet Lyrics: Billy Higgins When It's Sleepy Time Down South Composition: Leon René/Otis René/Clarence Muse For the 1931 film 'Safe in Hell' Baby, Won't You Please Come Home Composition: Charles Warfield/Clarence Williams Composition: Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart
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Valaida Snow Photo: John E. Reed Source: Black Glamour |
Born in 1904 in Chattanooga,
Tennessee, Valaida Snow was a multi-instrumentalist as a youth,
already playing violin professionally at age five as Valada the Great in
the Pickaninny Troubadours, a group formed by her parents in which her
siblings also performed
[ACA]. As they assumed the itinerant lifestyle of
traveling musicians Valaida gradually
focused on trumpet with which she also sang. Starting to acquire acclaim w
the instrument at about age fifteen, there is ample evidence that hers was
no small ability. ACA appears to have her striking out on
her own at age seventeen, touring the States as a stage performer. IBDB
has her performing as Manda in the Broadway production of 'The Chocolate
Dandies' on Broadway from Sep 1924 to Nov. She began visiting
the world per a tour of Shanghai,
Singapore, Calcutta and Jakarta in 1926 with Jack Carter's Serenaders. Her debut recordings on trumpet
were in 1932 with the
Washboard Rhythm Kings
(WRK).
A Popsike vendor has 'Spider Crawl'/'I Would Do Anything for You' (Vocalion
1734) going down in New York City on October 5 of 1932. Other titles
during that early period w the WRK: 1,
2.
Snow's first issued recording as a vocalist is thought to have been 'Maybe
I'm to Blame' (Brunswick A9407), gone down per Lord and Rust on
November 13, 1933, with backing by
Earl Hines's orchestra. IMDb has
her performing as herself in the 1937 film, 'Take It from Me'. As she
continued working in theatre and film ('Personal Column' uncredited 1939) in the thirties, international
travel to Europe and Asia remained of emphasis. During World War II Snow
was recording in Copenhagen, Denmark, with an
obscure group called Matadorerne in '41 when she was incarcerated for
theft and drugs by the Nazi government and detained until a prisoner
exchange in May the next year [Wikipedia]. Of numerous titles w the Matadorerne,
Lord's lists such as 'You're Driving Me Crazy'/'Take It Easy' (Tono 21165)
gone down on 26 July 1940 and 'Cherokee'/'Liza' (Tono SP4195) recorded in
autumn of '42. Lord's picks her up again in 1945 in Los Angeles,
performing trumpet and vocals on 'St. Louis Blues' for AFRS (Armed Forces
Radio Service) Jubilee #145. She made several more recordings in the
forties as she continued her career in the States, but her popularity was
well in decline by the time she laid out 'I Ain't Gonna Tell It'/'If You
Don't Mean It' (Chess 1555) some time in 1953 in Chicago, where Lord's,
Discogs
and RYM give her up. Snow died ion
30 May 1956 of brain hemorrhage in New York
City, only 52 years of age. References encyclopedic: 1,
2;
musical: 1,
2,
3,
4.
Compilations: The Classics Chronological Series: 1933-36,
1937-40,
1940-53;
Harlequin: 1935-37,
1935-40;
'Hot Snow Queen of the Trumpet Sings & Swings'
1937-50
on Rosetta RR 1305.
Archives. Valaida Snow 1932 Sentimental Gentleman from Georgia Trumpet w Washboard Rhythm Kings Music: Frank Perkins Lyrics: Mitchell Parish Valaida Snow 1933 With Earl Hines Composition: Charles Carpenter/Louis Dunlap/Earl Hines Valaida Snow 1935 I Can't Dance I've Got Ants in My Pants Composition: Clarence Williams Composition: Valaida Snow Composition: Nacio Herb Brow/Arthur Freed Composition: Sam Coslow/W. Frank Harling Valaida Snow 1936 Composition: Valaida Snow Composition: Eddie DeLange/Frank Loesser/Joseph Meyer Until the Real Thing Comes Along Composition: Sammy Cahn/Saul Chaplin LE Freeman/Mann Holiner/Alberta Nichols Valaida Snow 1937 Composition: Al Sherman/Abner Silver Valaida Snow 1939 Original composition: Cole Porter With Duke Ellington Composition: Duke Ellington/Juan Tizol With the Lulle Elbojs Orkeste Composition: Wallis Willis <1862 First recording: 1909 Fisk Jubilee Singers Film: 'Pieges' Valaida Snow 1940 Composition: Walter Donaldson With Winstrup Olesen Composition: WC Handy Valaida Snow 1946 Film With The Ali Baba Trio Film With The Ali Baba Trio Composition: Blackie Warren/Billy Moore
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Helen Ward Source: From the Vaults
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Born in 1913 in New York City, vocalist Helen Ward [1, 2, 3] first shows up in Lord's on January 17, 1934 with the Ed Lloyd Orchestra in NYC: 'This Little Piggy Went to Market' (Banner 32961). She is found with Lloyd again on February 2 for 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' (Conqueror 8261) [1, 2; Lord's: 17-19 Jan toward Banner 32071]. Come Feb 13 w Enric Madriguera and his Orchestra for duets w Bob Bunch on 'Oh! The Pity of It All' (Columbia 2896-D) and Tony Sacco on 'The Spanish in My Eyes' (Columbia 2899-D). On November 20, 1934, Ward recorded with the Harry Rosenthal outfit: 'You're the Top' and 'All Through the Night' issued on Columbia 2986-D. Stats Long had taken Benny Goodman's place on those, but Ward found herself in session with the Goodman's orchestra six days later to record 'I'm a Hundred Percent for You' (Columbia 2988-D). Goodman's band was Ward's main vehicle to fame. She hung with Goodman until 1937, their last of not a few sessions on April 29 during a radio broadcast from the Make Believe Ballroom in NYC: 'You Turned the Tables On Me'. She would also record with Goodman on July 22, 1946, in NYC during a 'Benny Goodman Show' (#4) radio broadcast: 'Linger in My Arms'. Later sessions with Goodman occurred on a number of occasions in the fifties. She next found herself in a couple of sessions with Gene Krupa before joining the Bob Crosby Orchestra, her first four sessions with him at 'Camel Caravan' radio broadcasts in NYC in 1939, such as 'I've Got the World on a String' and 'It's Funny to Everyone But Me'. Also principle to to Ward's career was Harry James. She had first recorded with James with the Teddy Wilson Orchestra, James as trumpet. She first recorded with James' own operation on May 20, 1941, in NYC yielding 'Daddy'. James and Ward stayed together until their last sessions for the CBS 'Chesterfield Time' radio broadcasts in Hollywood in spring of 1944. As a major jazz vocalist Ward graced many a big name band, among them those of Eddie Condon, Joe Sullivan, Hal McIntyre, Billy May and Red Norvo. She can be found on recordings with Wild Bill Davidson made in 1952 as well. After working with Peanuts Hucko in '57 and '58 Ward vanished altogether. She reemerged two decades later in 1979 to sing in nightclubs in NYC, including the Waldorf Astoria. In 1981 she issued an album titled 'The Helen Ward Song Book Vol. I'. The title indicates indicates more was to follow, but she disappeared again until her death on 21 April 1998 in Arlington, Virginia. Ward had also recorded as Vera Lane in August of '36 with Teddy Wilson: 'You Came to My Rescue' and 'Here’s Love in Your Eye'. That November she recorded as Harriett Kaye with Larry Kent & His Orchestra: 'One Never Knows, Does One?' and 'Who’s That Knocking at My Heart'. More Helen Ward under Benny Goodman in Big Band Swing. Sessions at DAHR. Discos: 1, 2. Helen Ward 1934 With Ed Loyd Music: Harry Warren Lyrics: Al Dubin Helen Ward 1935 With Benny Goodman Music: Richard Rodgers Lyrics: Lorenz Hart With Benny Goodman Music: Bernie Hanighen Lyrics: Johnny Mercer With Benny Goodman Composition: J. Russel Robinson/Bill Livingston With Benny Goodman Composition: Bob Rothberg/Dave Pollock With Benny Goodman Composition: Louis Alter/Sydney Mitchell Helen Ward 1938 With Gene Krupa Music: Rube Bloom Lyrics: Ted Koehler Helen Ward 1939 With Bob Crosby Music: Rube Bloom Lyrics: Johnny Mercer I've Got the World on a String With Bob Crosby Composition: Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler With Bob Crosby Composition: Jimmy Van Heusen/Johnny Burke Helen Ward 1944 With Harry James Composition: Webb Pierce With Harry James With Harry James Composition: Phil Moore With Harry James Music: Richard Rodgers 1937 Lyrics: Lorenz Hart For the musical 'Babes in Arms'
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Midge Williams Photo: Bob Arnold Collection Source: Stanford University |
Midge
Williams [1,
2,
3]
was born somewhere in Oregon in 1915, but raised in Allentown, California.
She began her music career in 1927 at age twelve as one of a vocal
quartette formed with her three brothers which sang at churches in the Berkeley-San
Francisco area. It was with pianist Roger Seguire that Williams toured China
and Japan, making her debut recordings in 1934 in Japan ('Dinah', below, and
'St. Louis Blues', unfound). In 1937 she formed her own band, the Jazz Jesters.
Williams enjoyed a stellar career in the latter thirties, playing Harlem venues
such as the Apollo Theater and the Savoy Ballroom in NYC with a number of
top-name musicians. But her career largely ended in 1941 upon hospitalization
in Detroit. She performed only once more, for radio with
Chick Webb in 1946, before dying of
tuberculosis at age 36 on 9 Jan of 1952. Catalogues: I &
2.
'The Complete Midge Williams Vol I &
II'.
Midge Williams 1934 Composition: Harry Akst/Samuel Lewis/Joseph Young Midge Williams 1936 Composition: Irving Berlin Music: Duke Ellington Lyrics: Irving Mills Music: Duke Ellington/Barney Bigard Lyrics: Irving Mills Midge Williams 1937 I'm Getting Sentimental Over You Music: George Bassman 1932 Lyrics: Ned Washington With Miff Mole Midge Williams 1938 Composition: Harry Revel/Mack Gordon With the Jazz Jesters
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| Born in 1916 in Mechanicville, New York, singer
Bob Eberly
(Eberle) was elder brother to vocalist,
Ray Eberle. Lord's finds Bob in 128
sessions w DAHR listing 212 titles.
Though Ray, also alto sax, participated in considerably more recording than Bob, the
latter sold more records. At age 19 Eberly filled Bob Crosby's vacancy when
the latter left the
Dorsey Brothers
in 1935. 'You're All I Need' (Decca 482) and 'Chasing Shadows' (Decca 476) were his first tracks
with the
Dorseys
from a session on May 27 [Lord's]. His last of three sessions with the
Dorseys on September 11 begat
'I've Got a Feelin'
You're Foolin' (Decca 560) and 'You Are My Lucky Star' (Decca 559) before
Jimmy and
Tommy split up, Eberly to
continue with
Jimmy. His initial session with
the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra
was September 19 of 1935, eight days after his last with both
Dorseys, yielding 'A Picture of
Me Without You' (Decca 571) and 'Me and Marie' (Decca 570). DAHR has
Eberly contributing violin to
Jimmy's release of 'The Magic of
Magnolias'/'Daydream' (Decca 4047)in 1941. The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra
was Eberly's main vessel to 1943, his last recordings with
Jimmy thought to have been radio
broadcasts that December yielding 'Perdido', 'I Got Rhythm' and 'One
O'Clock Jump'. He put down another track with
Jimmy in Hollywood on September
1946 for the film, 'The Fabulous Dorseys': 'Green Eyes'. That was with Helen O'Connell,
they no strangers ever since her joining
Jimmy's band in '39. O'Connell and Eberly would work together in the future with Ray
Anthony's orchestra in 1953. They appeared on television together in 1960,
singing 'Tangerine' on 'Ford Star Time'. Also highlighting the sixties was
Eberly's performance with
Woody Herman at the Newport Jazz
Festival in 1968 before fading into obscurity in the seventies. Eberly's
most popular issue had been 'One Has My Name the Other Has My Heart'
(Brunswick 04021) in 1949. He died of heart attack on 17 Nov 1981 not long
after the death of his brother,
Ray Eberle, in August '79. More Eberly under Helen O'Connell.
Almost all tracks below
are with the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra.
References: 1,
2,
3.
Sessions: DAHR, Lord's.
Discographies: 1,
2,
3.
Eberly in visual media.
Archives.
Other profiles: 1,
2. Bob Eberly 1935 With the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra Music: Abner Silver Lyrics: Benny Davis I've Got a Feelin' You're Foolin' With the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra Composition: Arthur Freed/Nacio Herb Brown: For the film 'Broadway Melody of 1936' Bob Eberly 1939 Composition: Jack Lawrence Bob Eberly 1940 Composition: Ian Grant/Lionel Rand Bob Eberly 1941 With Helen O'Connell Composition: See Lyrics Playground With Helen O'Connell Composition: Mabel Wayne/Al Dubin With Helen O'Connell Composition: Caesar Petrillo/Edward Ross/Nelson Shawn Composition: Harold Barlow/Lew Harris Bob Eberly 1942 Composition: Mack David/Ray Joseph Composition: Eddie DeLange/Sam Stept Bob Eberly 1944 Composition: Axel Stordahl/Paul Weston/Sammy Cahn Bob Eberly 1957 Enoch Light Orchestra Music: Jule Styne Lyrics: Betty Comden/Adolph Green
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Bob Eberly Source: Memory Lane |
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Born in 1917 in Newport News, Virginia, vocalist Ella Fitzgerald made her first recordings on June 12, 1935, upon getting hired by Chick Webb. Those included 'Love and Kisses'. Ella was famous for scat singing, firmly solidified the places of Cole Porter [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], George Gershwin, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington in musical history, and became known as the First Lady of Song. By twists and turns, when Fitzgerald's mother died of heart attack in 1932 she found herself without a guardian and was placed in an orphanage in the Bronx, then the New York Training School for Girls, a reformatory in Hudson, New York, from which she escaped. She began singing at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1934, the next year with Chick Webb at the Savoy. Upon Webb's early death in June of 1939 Fitzgerald became the nominal (in name only) head of his band, called Ella and her Famous Orchestra, until 1942. Her last recordings with Webb had been in May of '39, the month before his death. That was a broadcast from the Southland Cafe in Boston yielding 'A New Moon and an Old Serenade' among others. Her first recordings with her Famous Orchestra availed themselves per June of '39, 'Betcha Nickel' and 'Out of Nowhere' among others. Among the huge names with whom Fitzgerald performed were Louis Armstrong and Count Basie. Among her continuous collaborators for several years was alto saxophonist, Louis Jordan, with whom she first recorded 1937 while with Webb: 'Take Another Guess' and 'Time Marches On'. Jordan followed Fitzgerald into her own orchestra upon Webb's death and remained with her until his Tympany Five in 1950, they recording ''Tain't Nobody's Business If I do' and 'I'll Never Be Free' with that ensemble. Fitzgerald also frequently recorded with the vocal harmony group, the Ink Spots, their first such occasion in NYC on November 3, 1943, yielding 'Cow Cow Boogie'. Several occasions followed, including with her orchestra, into 1945, with another occasion to occur as late as December 1950: 'Little Small Town Girl' and 'I Still Feel the Same About You'. Fitzgerald also employed the Delta Rhythm Boys, they first recording with her orchestra on March 27, 1945, a couple takes each of 'It's Only a Paper Moon' and 'Cry You Out of My Heart'. That vocal group would be with her orchestra again on August 29 of '46 to record 'For Sentimental Reasons' and 'It's a pity to Say Goodnight'. Among the highlights of Fitzgerald's career were her frequent appearances with Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP), her first such occasion at Carnegie Hall on February 11, 1949, to issue 'I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm' among other unreleased titles. Fitzgerald recorded with JATP on some twenty occasions to as late as October 17, 1983, in Tokyo, to issue 'Flying Home' among others. Another of Fitzgerald's partners was was bebopper, Dizzy Gillespie. They first recorded together at Carnegie Hall on September 29, 1947, titles would much later get issued per the album, 'It Happened One Night'. Gillespie and Fitzgerald would record in the fifties, the seventies and as late as circa 1989 in Los Angeles for an album produced by Quincy Jones, 'Back on the Block'. In 1947 Fitzgerald married the great bassist, Ray Brown (second husband, divorced in 1953). They first recorded together on December 20, 1947, in NYC, three takes of 'How High the Moon' among a couple others. They attended numerous sessions together into 1958, again in the sixties, seventies and eighties. In 1956 Fitzgerald released 'Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book' with Buddy Bregman arranging. Fitzgerald dedicated seven more Song Books to composers integral to the Great American Songbook [1, 2, 3]. Per Wikipedia: Cole Porter '56, Rodgers & Hart '56, Duke Ellington '57, Irving Berlin '58, George & Ira Gershwin '59, Harold Arlen '61, Jerome Kern '63, Johnny Mercer '64. Years later in 1981 she added a Song Book ('Ella Abraça Jobim') for Brazilian composer, Antônio Carlos Jobim. In 1973 she and guitarist, Joe Pass, issued the first of four albums together: 'Take Love Easy'. Fitzgerald recorded her last album, 'All That Jazz', in 1989. She gave her last performance in 1991 at Carnegie Hall. Her last recording to issue was 'The Setting Sun' in 1992. Among the charities Fitzgerald supported were the American Heart Association, the City of Hope Medical Center and the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation established in 1993. Due to diabetes Fitzgerald lost both legs at the knee in 1993. She died [1, 2] in her wheelchair in 1996 in Beverly Hills, her last words reportedly, "I'm ready to go now." Socially, scat belting Fitzgerald was shy and withdrawn. Among her countless gems was a statement rather than a song: "I don't want to say the wrong thing, which I always do, but I think I do better when I sing." More Ella Fitzgerald at Swing Jazz Big Bands under Chick Webb. References encyclopedic: 1, 2, 3; musical: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; periodical: 1, 2; timeline. Discographies: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Compilations: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Song reviews. Album reviews. Fitzgerald at YouTube. In other visual media. Collections: LOC: 1, 2, 3; Smithsonian; University of Idaho. Further reading: HMR Project; reformatory school. Per 'A-Tisket A-Tasket' below, that originated from a traditional English nursery rhyme called 'Drop the Glove'. Music was adapted by Van Alexander w lyrics altered by Fitzgerald. She also applied herself to the lyrics for Frank Foster's 1957 'Shiny Stockings'. Ella Fitzgerald 1936 Composition: Sonny Curtis With Chick Webb Composition: Sam Coslow Ella Fitzgerald 1938 With Chick Webb Composition: See above Ella Fitzgerald 1939 Composition: Cole Porter: For the musical 'Leave It to Me!' Ella Fitzgerald 1945 With the Delta Rhythm Boys Music: Harold Arlen 1933 Lyrics: Yip Harburg/Billy Rose Ella Fitzgerald 1947 Composition: George & Ira Gershwin 1924 Ella Fitzgerald 1949 Live at Newport Jazz Festival Composition: 1939: Music: Benny Goodman/Lionel Hampton Lyrics: Sid Robin Ella Fitzgerald 1954 Album Ella Fitzgerald 1956 Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered Music: Richard Rodgers 1940 Lyrics: Lorenz Hart Composition: Cole Porter 1948: For the musical 'Kiss Me, Kate' Composition: Cole Porter 1932: For the musical 'Gay Divorce' Ella Fitzgerald 1959 With the Lou Levy Trio Composition: 1939: Music: Benny Goodman/Lionel Hampton Lyrics: Sid Robin Ella Fitzgerald 1960 Album: 'Ella in Berlin' Music: Morgan Lewis 1940 Lyrics: Nancy Hamilton For the Broadway show 'Two for the Show' Album: 'Ella in Berlin' Composition: Marc Blitzstein/Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill Music: Errol Garner 1954 Lyrics: Johnny Burke Album: 'Ella in Berlin' Music: George Gershwin 1934 Lyrics: DuBose Heyward For the 1935 opera 'Porgy and Bess' Ella Fitzgerald 1963 Music: Jerome Kern 1939 Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II For the musical 'Very Warm for May' Ella Fitzgerald 1964 Filmed in Japan Music: Frank Foster 1957 Lyrics: Fitzgerald Ella Fitzgerald 1990 Last album
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Ella Fitzgerald Source: park5611 |
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Lena Horne Source: Bio |
Born in 1917 in Brooklyn, actress Lena Horne began her career as a chorus girl at the Cotton Club in Harlem in 1933. Lord's lists her first of 111 sessions with Noble Sissle in NYC on March 11, 1936 toward 'That's What Love Did to Me' (Decca 778) and 'I Take to You' (Decca 847). In 1940 she switched from Sissle's band to Charlie Barnet's orchestra for several years. Her first session with Barnet per Lord's looks like 20 Jan of 1941 for 'All I Desire' toward Blue Heaven BH-1106. Circle later issued that on the Barnet compilation, '1941', per CLP-65 in '84 and CCD-65 in '92. Horne released her first album, 'Moanin' Low', in 1941, the year she began leading her own orchestras, Ned Freeman arranging and Lou Bring conducting that year. Horne appeared in her first movie, 'Panama Hattie', the next year, but would later come to prefer performing in nightclubs to Hollywood, headlining at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in the fifties. Horne stayed with Barnet into 1946, the year she signed on with Benny Goodman, her first recordings with his orchestra about January of '46 for a couple of AFRS (Armed Forces Radio Service) broadcasts (#166 and #168) from Hollywood: 'More and More' et al. Horne began making television appearances in the fifties. In 1957 she released the album, 'Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria'. Emphasizing television appearances in the sixties, latter 1969 saw Horne recording 'Lena & Gabor' w guitarist, Gabor Szabo, for issue the next year. Yet emphasizing television through the seventies, in May 1981 Horne began starring in the theatre production, 'Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music'. After 333 performances on Broadway the show then toured the States, Canada and London, finishing in Stockholm in September 1984. Horne gave her final performances in 1994 at Carnegie Hall and the Supper Club in New York City. (The 1995 album, 'An Evening with Lena Horne', was recorded live at the Supper Club.) Horne's last recordings are thought to have been with English conductor, Simon Rattle on the LP, 'Classic Ellington', in 2000. In addition to acting and music, Horne was a great civil rights activist. (During World War II she refused to perform for segregated audiences. The military, however, was not yet integrated: there were shows for white soldiers, then shows for black soldiers, who sat behind German POWs. Upon being confronted with that arrangement, Horne left the stage and took a spot with the POWs to her back and only black troops before her.) Horne died of heart failure in NYC on 9 May 2010 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. References encyclopedic: 1, 2, 3, 4; musical: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; TCM. Timeline. Discographies: 1, 2, 3, 4. Compilations: 'Moanin' Low' Broadway 1927-39 on Victor 10" 1942 (LP 1954). Horne on Broadway. In film and television:1, 2, 3. Interviews: Dick Cavett 1981: 1, 2, 3; Johnny Carson 1982: 1, 2; NAMM 1994: *; PBS 1996: *; Rosie O'Donnell 1998: 1, 2; Sherry Carter 1998: *. Documentaries: PBS. Archives: 1, 2, 3. Further reading: Horne and Billy Strayhorn. Other profiles: 1, 2, 3, 4. Lena Horne 1936 With Noble Sissle Composition: Fred Rose With Noble Sissle Composition: Fred Rose/Ed Nelson Lena Horne 1941 Composition: Ralph Rainger/Howard Dietz Composition: Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler Music: Richard Rodgers 1937 Lyrics: Lorenz Hart For the musical 'Babes in Arms' Lena Horne 1943 Composition: Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler Film: 'Stormy Weather' Lena Horne 1944 Film: 'Boogie Woogie Dream' With Albert Ammons & Pete Johnson Composition: Leonard Feather Lena Horne 1952 What Is This Thing Called Love With the Lou Bring Orchestra Composition: Cole Porter Lena Horne 1957 Composition: Roc Hillman Album: 'Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria' Composition: Thomas Fats Waller/Andy Razaf Album: 'Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria' Composition: Herbert Baker Album: 'Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria' Lena Horne 1959 Composition: DuBose Heyward/Gershwin Brothers Album: 'Porgy and Bess' Lena Horne 1994 Live at the Supper Club Music: Richard Rodgers 1937 Lyrics: Lorenz Hart For the musical 'Babes in Arms' Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me Live at the Supper Club Music: Duke Ellington 1940 Lyrics: Bob Russell 1944
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The Andrews Sisters Source: Pin up Spirit
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The Andrews Sisters began their careers just as their major predecessors in female vocal harmony, the Boswell Sisters, were retiring as a trio. It was the Boswells after whom the Andrews sisters early fashioned themselves. The Andrews consisted of Maxine Angelyn (b '16 soprano), Patricia Marie (b '18 soprano) and LaVerne Sophia (b '11 alto), all three born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Maxine and Pat were adolescents, LaVerne perhaps seventeen, when they were noted by Larry Rich who hosted and directed the band at a talent contest the sisters won at the Orpheum Theatre in April of '31. Come November they found themselves on the road to tour the States with Rich, attended by a tutor since neither Max nor Patty were old enough to leave school, education compulsory to age sixteen. The tutor didn't last long, though the girls continued with Rich for a couple years before moving through other bands to eventually arrive to the orchestra of Leon Belasco with whom they first recorded on 18 March 1937 toward 'There's a Lull in My Life'/'Wake Up and Live' (Brunswick 7872) and 'Jammin'' (Brunswick 7863) [Sforza]. By the time of their next session on 18 Oct (14 Oct DAHR) to record in their own name they had teamed with trumpeter and band leader, Vic Schoen [1, 2, 3], thereafter to enjoy a lucrative relationship. Their first issue, 'Why Talk About Love?'/'Just a Simple Melody' (Decca 1496) didn't raise a lot of noise. But their second session on 24 Nov included 'Bei Mir Bist Du Schon' ('To Me You Are Beautiful'), sometimes titled 'Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen', launched a career in female harmony which only the Supremes many years later would match. Embroidering their music along the way with a number of international flavors from calypso to Russian, other of their numerous high-selling songs were 'Shoo-Shoo Baby' in '44, 'I Can Dream, Can't I' in '49 and I Wanna Be Loved in 1950. Other than Schoen, their arranger, the Andrews Sisters' most important musical association was Bing Crosby, also the only vocalist they didn't outsell. They released their first of 47 issues with Crosby in 1939: 'Ciribiribin'/'Yodelin' Jive' (Decca 2800). Especially popular were 'Hot Time in the Town of Berlin' in the summer of '44 and 'Don't Fence Me In' in latter '44, both preceding the end of World War II in Europe the next year. Selling more than 75 million records during their career, the Andrews Sisters had appeared in their first of seventeen films, 'Argentine Nights', in 1940. They were enthusiastic entertainers of Allied troops in the European theater during World War II, also helping to raise funds via war bonds (: 'Any Bonds Today?' below). They also recorded Victory discs (V-discs, available only to Allied military personnel, samples below) and roused endeavor via multiple radio programs. Which is to say, the Andrew Sisters were no small generator of triumph and contribution to Allied victory. They dismantled in 1951, then reunited in 1956. The original trio last performed together on the 'Dean Martin Show' aired 29 September 1966. The eldest sister, LaVerne, died on 8 May 1967 of cancer. A brave Joyce DeYoung filled her spot on another broadcast of the 'Dean Martin Show' on 30 Nov '67. Maxine became dean of Tahoe Paradise College the next year as Patricia pursued a solo career. The pair sporadically performed as a duo on various occasions including the Broadway production of 'Over Here!' premiering at the Shubert Theater on 6 March of '74. In 1979 Maxine revived her career, pursuing cabaret song for the next fifteen years (releasing the LP, 'Maxene: An Andrews Sister', in 1985). She died of heart attack in NYC on 21 Oct 1995. Patricia died in 2013 in North Ridge, California. All in all, though we like St. Pauli Girls too, when there's a blitzkrieg or kamikaze coming your direction, just circle your wagons with an Andrews girl. References encyclopedic: 1, 2; musical: 1, 2, 3, 4; books: 'The Andrews Sisters: A Biography and Career Record' by Harry Nimmo (McFarland 2004), 'Swing It!: The Andrews Sisters Story' by John Sforza (University Press of Kentucky 2004). Discographies: 1, 2, 3, 4; w Bing Crosby. Andrews Sisters in visual media: 1, 2. Tribute site. Further reading at Songbook. Per 'Pistol Packin' Mama' 1943 below, that was written by Al Dexter adding text to the traditional slave melody, 'Boil Them Cabbage Down'. Per 'Quicksilver' in 1950, that was authored by Eddie Pola, George Wyle and Irving Taylor in 1950. It's not the 'Quicksilver' that was composed by Horace Silver in 1952. Andrews Sisters 1937 Music: Sholom Secunda Lyrics: Sammy Cahn/Saul Chaplin Andrews Sisters 1938 Composition: Sammy Cahn/Saul Chaplin Andrews Sisters 1939 With Bing Crosby Music: Alberto Pestalozza 1898 Lyrics: Carlo Tiochet With Bing Crosby Composition: Don Raye/Hughie Prince Andrews Sisters 1940 'Para Vigo me voy' Music: rnesto Lecuona 1935 Lyrics Spanish: Francia Luban Lyrics English: Al Stillman 'Reginella Campagnola' Music: Eldo Di Lazzaro 1939 Lyrics Italian: Bruno Cherubini (C. Bruno) Lyrics English: Harold Adamson Andrews Sisters 1941 Composition: Irving Berlin Composition: Don Raye/Hughie Prince Composition: Don Raye/Hughie Prince Andrews Sisters 1943 With Bing Crosby Composition: James Lord Pierpont Andrews Sisters 1943 With Bing Crosby Composition: See above Andrews Sisters 1944 With Bing Crosby Music: Cole Porter 1934 Lyrics: Robert Fletcher There'll Be a Hot Time in the Town of Berlin With Bing Crosby Composition: Joe Bushkin/John DeVries 1943 With Mitchell Ayres Andrews Sisters 1945 Calypso Music: Lionel Belasco Lyrics: Lord Invader (Rupert Grant) With the Mills Brothers With the Mills Brothers Andrews Sisters 1946 With Bing Crosby Composition: Harold Rome Andrews Sisters 1947 With Sammy Kaye Composition: Bob Hilliard/Carl Sigman Andrews Sisters 1950 With Bing Crosby Composition: See above Andrews Sisters 1951 With Bing Crosby Composition: John Jerome Andrews Sisters 1966 'Dean Martin Show' 'Dean Martin Show' Thought their last performance as a trio Music: Isham Jones 1923 Lyrics: Gus Kahn Andrews Sisters 1967 'Dean Martin Show' LaVerne out Add Joyce DeYoung Joined by Lena Horne
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Vic Schoen Source: Kevin Kaska
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King Sisters
Photo: ABC Television
Source: Wikiwand |
The six original King Sisters were Alyce, Donna, Luise,
Marilyn, Maxine and Yvonne. Each born in Pleasant Grove, Utah, their first
professional employment was with a Salt Lake City radio station. They worked
for a couple other radio stations in Oakland and San Francisco in the early
thirties until joining the Horace Heidt Orchestra in 1935, with whom they
began emerging to national attention. The Sister's first determinable
recordings were issued with Heidt in 1937:
'Hot Lips/The Bells of St. Mary's' (Brunswick 7916). After Heidt, the Sisters sang for
Artie Shaw, Charlie Barnet and
Alvino Rey. Among their more popular
songs was issued in the summer of '41 as the Four King Sisters: 'The Hut-Hut
Song' (Bluebird B-11154). Later on 7 December the Japanese bombed Pearl
Harbor, the U.S. entering World War II during which the King Sisters appeared
on radio with Kay Kyser. The War was
yet raging when they issued 'Love Love Love' (Bluebird 30-0822) in spring of
'44. Highlighting the fifties was the 1958 release of their album,
'Imagination'. In 1965 the sisters had their own ABC television program,
'The King Family Show', which ran for five seasons. The last surviving
Sister, Marilyn, died in 2013. With the exception of 'Bluesette', all
titles
below from 1965 onward are edits from 'The King Family Show' References:
1,
2,
3,
4;
Dana Countryman 1,
2.
Filmography.
Discographies: 1,
2,
3. King Sisters 1937 With Horace Heidt Composition: Henry Busse/Henry Lange/Lou Davis With Horace Heidt Music: Arthur Johnston Lyrics: Johnny Burke For the film 'Double or Nothing' King Sisters 1940 I'll Get By (As Long As I Have You) Composition: Fred Ahlert/Roy Turk King Sisters 1944 Composition: Gordon Jenkins King Sisters 1945 Music: Alex Kramer 1944 Lyrics: Mack David/Joan Whitney King Sisters 1958 Composition: Johnny Burke/James Van Heusen King Sisters 1964 Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime 'The Family Is King' television special Composition: Johnny Burke/James Van Heusen King Sisters 1965 Music: Joseph Kosma Lyrics: Jacques Prévert Composition: Johnny Burke/James Van Heusen Composition: Arthur Guitar Boogie Smith Composition: Mack Gordon/Harry Warren 1942 Composition: Jack Keller Music: Original DixieLand Jazz Band 1917: Eddie Edwards/Nick LaRocca Henry Ragas/Tony Sbarbaro Lyrics: Harry DeCosta King Sisters 1966 Music: Toots Thielemans Lyrics: Norman Gimbel Composition: Paul McCartney King Sisters 1969 With the Four King Cousins
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The Modernaires Photo: CBS Source: Wikipedia |
The Modernaires
[1,
2,
3,
4] were formed in 1935 as a
high school
trio called the Three Weary Willies that became Don Juan Two and Three.
Consisting of Bill Conway, Hal Dickinson and Chuck Goldstein, 'American
Singing Groups: A History from 1940s to Today' by
Jay Warner has them
performing early on for WGR radio in Buffalo. Their initial notable
performance was with
Ted Fio Rito
in Buffalo at the Glen Falls Casino. Wikipedia has transcriptions made w
Fio Rito on unidentified
dates. Singers has them recording
at least one unidentified title in early 1936 w
Red McKenzie's
Mound City Blue Blowers including trumpeter,
Bunny Berigan. There no mention
at Singers of anything issued, "early" 1936 w Berigan in Lord's (which
makes no mention of the Modernaires) is most tracks from Jan to April. If
anything was issued perhaps it was on something
at 1,
2.
The Modernaires show up in Rust ('Jazz and Ragtime Records 1897 – 1942')
as the Barnet Modernaires for a session w
Charlie Barnet in NYC on 3
August of '36 to record 'Make Believe Ballroom'/'Bye-Bye, Baby' (Bluebird
B-6504). 24 August saw them recording 'Milkmen's Matinee' (Bluebird
B-6593) [DAHR]. They also performed about that time w the Ozzie Nelson
Band as the Three Wizards of Ozzie. Per Singers the trio became a quartet
upon adding Ralph Brewster to work with the
Fred Waring Orchestra. The group
moved over to the band of George Hall by early '37, issuing 'It's Swell of You'
on Variety 526 as the Four
Modernaires. Lord picks them up as the Modernaires with Paul
Whiteman as early as 27 May for radio transcriptions including 'John
Peel' eventually issued on Jazum 60 and Solid Sender 516 on unknown dates.
Whiteman's was a busy orchestra with which the Modernaires performed
numerously for radio. Lord's documents their first session w
Whiteman for Decca per 9 September 1938 for such as 'I'm Comin'
Virginia', (2145), 'I Used to Be Color Blind' (2073) and 'Jamboree Jones'
(2074). Among notable titles w
Whiteman was 'Jeepers Creepers' (Decca 2222) recorded 8 December of
'38. The Modernaires left
Whiteman in 1940 to work with Glenn Miller,
consequently
Marion Hutton as well. Their
first session w Miller is traced
in Lord's to 11 Oct 1940 to two takes of 'Make Believe Ballroom' issued
individually on Bluebird 10913 and Victor EPA5035. That same session had
Hutton putting down 'You've Got
Me This Way' (Bluebird 10906).
Ray Eberle sang two takes each of
'A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square' and 'I'd Know You Anywhere'
(Bluebird 10906). Paula
Kelly [1,
2,
3]
who was Dickenson's wife was hired by Miller in 1941 to
fill in for
Hutton during a leave of absence.
She is first found w the Modernaires in Lord's circa March 24 in Hollywood
to record 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' w Miller
for the film, 'Sun Valley Serenade'. March 25 brought the first of
numerous appearances on the CBS radio program, 'The Chesterfield Show'.
Lord's has Kelly w the Modernaires on 'The Chesterfield Show' to as late
as August 1941 ('The Hut-Sut Song'),
Hutton returning. In the
meantime Kelly and the Modernaires had transcribed such as 'La Cucaracha'
on 25 March of '41 ('Chesterfield') for eventual issue on Ajazz C-2125.
Kelly and the Modernaires recorded 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' again on 7 May
1941 for issue on Bluebird 11230. Another of their favorites to perform
was 'Perifida', one such occasion for 'The Chesterfield Show' on 3 June
1941 to see later issue in 1953 on Victor EPNT 6700. Hutton's return to Miller's orchestra and
the Modernaires brought numerous performances of 'Chattanooga Choo Choo'
for 'The Chesterfield Show' and otherwise, some transcribed to later
issue, some to unknown fate. Lord finds their first such occasion per an
NBC broadcast of 'Cafe Rouge' from the Hotel Pennsylvania in NYC on 22 Nov
1941 eventually released on Soundcraft 1011 and Ajazz C-2129.
Hutton was working w the
Modernaires when
Miller
disbanded his orchestra to join the Army in 1942 (to die Dec 1944). She
departed the Modernaires in '43, Kelly to replace her again. The
Modernaires' heydays were in the latter forties, releasing their strongest
titles during that period: 'There! I've Said It Again' ('45), 'To Each His
Own' ('46), 'Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah' ('47) and 'The Old Master Painter' ('49),
the last recorded w Frank Sinatra
toward Columbia 38650. Discogs has them issuing an album on 10" as early
as 1953: 'Tributes in Tempo'. 'Vocally Yours' followed in '54. Their
release of 'Juke Box Saturday Night' on 10" also saw issue on LP in '56 [RYM
'55]. Come 'Modern Aires' on LP in '56. Several albums followed to as late
as 'The Modernaires Sing the Great Glenn Miller Instrumentals' in 1968.
Kelly continued w the Modernaires to 1978 when she retired, replaced by
her daughter, Paula Kelly Junior. Dickinson had died in 1970, Goldstein in
'74. Conway would pass away in 91, Kelly in '92, Kelly Junior in 2012. The group was inducted into the Vocal
Group Hall of Fame in 2000.
Sessions
at DAHR 1939-58. Discographies: 1,
2,
3.
Compilations: 'The Modernaires with Paula Kelly' 1945-50 by
Collectables Classics 2006.
The Modernaires in visual media.
Archives.
Other profiles: 1,
2. Other
vocal groups about their period are indexed in
Doo Wop. Tracks below are alphabetical by year. The Barnet Modernaires 1936 With Charlie Barnet Radio transcription recorded '36 Issue unknown Composition: Paul Denniker/Andy Razaf With Charlie Barnet Composition: Joe Davis/Paul Denniker/Andy Razaf The Modernaires 1937 With the George Hall Orchestra Composition: Harry Revel/Mack Gordon With the George Hall Orchestra Composition: Harry Revel/Mack Gordon The Modernaires 1938 With Paul Whiteman Composition: WC Handy With Paul Whiteman Composition: Harry Warren/Johnny Mercer The Modernaires 1939 With Paul Whiteman Composition: Eddie De Lange/Jimmy Van Heusen With Paul Whiteman The Modernaires 1940 With Glenn Miller Composition: Harold Green/Martin Block/Mickey Stoner The Modernaires 1941 With Glenn Miller Composition: Carl Sigman/Johnny Mercer/Joseph Meyer With Glenn Miller The Modernaires 1942 Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree With Glenn Miller Composition: Sam Stept/Lew Brown/Charles Tobias With Glenn Miller Composition: Mack Gordon/Harry Warren With Glenn Miller Composition: Mack Gordon/Harry Warren With Glenn Miller Composition: Mack Gordon/Harry Warren With Tex Beneke Composition: Mack Gordon/Harry Warren The Modernaires 1946 With Mannie Klein Composition: Ray Evans/Jay Livingston The Modernaires 1953 With Fran Scott Composition: Rocky Starr/Will Carson The Modernaires 1965 With Herb Alpert Composition: Bobby Scott/Ric Marlow With Tex Beneke Composition: Harry Warren/Mack Gordon
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Ray Nance Source: Wikipedia
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Born in 1913 in Chicago, trumpeter, violinist and vocalist Ray Nance
[1,
2]
formed his own band at age 21 in 1932. In 1937 he began blowing trumpet with pianist,
Earl Hines, in Chicago with whom
he set his first tracks on August 10, such as 'Hines Rhythm' and 'Rhythm
Rhapsody'. His first recorded vocal was with
Hines on March 7, 1938: 'Tippin'
at the Terrace'. Sessions with
Hines ensued into 1938 (another in
'44) before joining Horace Henderson in '39. His first session with
Henderson on February 27, 1940, found him on violin for the first time per
'Kitty on Toast'. A session for Okeh followed in May before Nance signed
on with whom would be his major vehicle for the next quarter century, that
replacing Cootie Williams
in the orchestra of Duke
Ellington with whom he first recorded a long string of
titles on November 7, 1940, at the Crystal Ballroom in Fargo, North
Dakota, such as 'The Mooche' and 'Ko-Ko'. Nance first appeared in visual
media w Ellington as part of
the band in the 1941 film, 'Hot Chocolate'.
IBDb has him on television w
Ellington in April 1949 as an
uncredited member of the band per 'Adventures in Jazz'. He appeared on the
same program as himself the next month. Constant touring and numberless sessions
w Ellington followed to as late as July 29,
1966, at the Antibes Jazz Festival in Juan-les-Pins, France, another long
stream of titles including 'Take the 'A' Train and 'Soul Call'. Nance
reunited with Ellington
several months before the latter's death (May 24, 1974) in September of
1973, for what were Ellington's
last studio tracks per the album, 'It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got
That Swing'. Another huge figure in Nance's career was also saxophonist,
Johnny Hodges, he present at
Nance's first session with
Ellington at the Crystal Ballroom as commented.
Hodges stayed with
Ellington into 1955, after which Nance began backing
Hodges' orchestra on January
11, 1956, blowing trumpet on such as 'Hi' Ya' and 'Sinbor'.
Hodges was another reason that
Nance's sessions during his career exceeded a highly prolific 640 (five of
those in Lord's his own). One session wrought the next to as late January 9, 1967
for
Hodges' 'Triple Play'. Nance
had held his first of a handful of sessions as a leader with the
Ellingtonians on July 1, 1948, in London, resulting in such as 'Moon Mist'
and 'Sometimes I'm Happy' for Esquire. He later issued a couple albums:
'Body and Soul' in '69 and 'Huffin' 'n' Puffin'' in '71. Nance
toured England and recorded with trombonist,
Chris Barber, in Germany in 1974,
before his his final titles at Carnegie Hall on November 8 with the New
York Jazz Repertory Company, such as 'Funeral March', 'St. Louis Blues'
and 'You've Been a Good Old Wagon'. Nance died on January 28, 1976. in New York City.
Sessions 1940-45.
Discographies: 1,
2,
3.
Compilations: 'The Complete 1940-1949 Non-Ducal Violin Recordings' on
AB Fable ABCD
1014. Nigh all tracks
below are with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
In the 1940 sample Nance shares trumpet with Cootie Williams.
He plays violin on 'C Jam Blues', 'Take the 'A' Train' and 'Wild Child'
below. More Ray Nance on horn and violin under
Ray Nance in Swing Jazz. Ray Nance 1938 With Earl Hines Composition: Curtis Ousley Charles Fox/Louis Dunlap/Charles Carpenter Ray Nance 1940 With Horace Henderson Composition: Maurice & Lottie Wells Ray Nance 1958 Music: Duke Ellington 1931 Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner Ray Nance 1965 Composition: Joe Turner
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Maxine Sullivan Source: Black Kudos |
Born in 1911 in Homestead, Pennsylvania, Maxine Sullivan was a 19 year-old high school graduate when was working as a maid by day and w her uncle's local band, the Red Hot Peppers, by night. She'd already been through a marriage and had a child when she left for Pittsburgh to sing at the Benjamin Harrison Literary Society, a Prohibition era speakeasy visited by touring talent such as Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and Cab Calloway. She got noticed there by pianist, Gladys Mosier, who encouraged her to come to NYC, which she did in the summer of '37 to be introduced to pianist, Claude Thornhill, who was directing his orchestra at the Onyx Club on 52nd Street. Sullivan was immediately hired, her first recordings soon to ensue w Thronhill on 14 June of '37 toward 'Stop, You're Breaking My Heart' (Vocalion 3616) and 'Gone with the Wind' (Vocalion 3595). [Lord's]. Her next session with Thornhill on 6 August was her first toward issue in her own name, among those titles a swing adaptation of the Scottish folk song, 'Loch Lomond' (Vocalion 3654/Okeh 3654). Clarinetist, Buster Bailey, was in on those, as well as bassist, John Kirby. Kirby and Sullivan were in numerous sessions together with Thornhill, such as on her highly popular 1937 issue of 'Nice Work if You Can Get It' (Vocalion 3848/Okeh 3848). Sullivan appeared in the Hollywood film musical, 'Going Places', in 1938 (w Louis Armstrong and unknown Ronald Reagan) and 'St. Louis Blues' in 1939. She appeared in the Broadway production of 'Swingin' the Dream' for a brief run in latter '39.Sullivan sang for Kirby when he put together his own orchestra together in 1940, their first releases in that capacity on May 1: 'St. Louis Blues' (Columbia 36341) and two takes of 'The Hour of Parting', one released flip to 36341. Married in '38, divorced in '41, Sullivan and Kirby recorded frequently together into 1941, reuniting variously to as late as the fifties and seventies. Kirby supported her on 28 Jan of 1942 toward her high-selling issue of 'My Ideal' on Decca 18555. Sullivan first recorded with Benny Carter in New York City on April 1, 1941, to issue 'Midnight' (Bluebird B11288) and 'What a Difference a Day Made' (Bluebird B11197). Later in 1946 they issued 'I'm the Caring Kind' (Deluxe 1012) and 'Looking for a Boy' (Deluxe 1009) together. On July 3, 1944, Sullivan recorded with Jimmie Lunceford during a radio broadcast from Hollywood: 'Molly Malone' and 'Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet'. She first recorded with Teddy Wilson on December 18, 1944, yielding 'This Heart of Mine' (Tiara TMT7508) and 'Every Time We Say Goodbye' (Musicraft 317). Sullivan laid tracks with Wilson into 1945, a session in January that year yielding another rendition of 'This Heart of Mine' (Musicraft 317). Among notable LPs was her 1956 release of the LP, 'A Tribute to Andy Razaf'. Sullivan retired from the music business in 1958 to raise her children while working as a nurse. She reappeared again in 1966, performing at jazz festivals and recording well into the eighties. Along the way she appeared on Broadway again in '79 for 53 performances of 'My Old Friends'. Sullivan died on 7 April 1987 in New York City. She was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1998. References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Sessions 1938-42. Discographies: 1, 2, 3. Sullivan in visual media. Sullivan on Broadway. Archives. Claude Thornhill 1937 Composition: Harry Warren/Mack Gordon Composition: Donald Heywood/Will Marion Cook Composition: See Wikipedia Maxine Sullivan 1938 Composition: Cole Porter Maxine Sullivan 1943 Composition: Newell Chase/Richard Whiting Composition: Einar Aaron Swan Maxine Sullivan 1956 Composition: Luckey Roberts/Andy Razaf Album: 'A Tribute to Andy Razaf' Maxine Sullivan 1958 Live on film Composition: James Dempsey/George Mitchell Maxine Sullivan 1959 'Stars For Defense' radio broadcast Maxine Sullivan 1985 Live concert performance Composition: Ned Washington/Joe Young Live concert performance Composition: Cole Porter
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Martha Tilton Source: From the Vaults |
Born in 1915 in Corpus Christi, Texas,
Martha Tilton
[1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6]
was older sister to singer, Liz Tilton. Martha had a banker for a father
who moved her as a toddler to Kansas, then to Los Angeles in 1922. Singing
there on radio as teenager, getting booked by more radio stations
yet was fatal to academics, as to be such a popular singer encouraged her
to quit high school in the 11th grade (circa '32) to join Hal Grayson's band
for about three years. Giving birth to a son in '36, she joined a group
called Three Hits and a Miss later that year. She worked w the band of
Jimmy Dorsey for a few months the next, also first appearing in three
films that year per 'Sing While You're Able', 'Topper' w Three Hits
and a Miss and the Columbia short, 'Broker's Follies'. Come
Benny Goodman in Hollywood to film 'Hollywood Hotel' in '37. Lord has
her singing on radio in Los Angeles for the 'Benny Goodman's Swing School'
program sponsored by Camel cigarettes as early as 13 August of '37, possibly 16 July.
She was an uncredited member of the Myer Alexander Chorus on those.
Numerous 'Swing School' (Camel Caravan) broadcasts followed, Tilton's
first credited title in Lord's being 'A Sailboat in the Moonlight' on 24
August, the transcription eventually issued in 1975 on
Goodman compilation, 'The Camel Caravan: Vol 2 1937' Sunbeam 147. That
also includes 'The Dixieland Band' gone down at the Madhattan Room in NYC
on 21 Oct 1937. Tilton played Carnegie Hall with
Goodman the following year on 16 Jan to sing 'Loch Lomond' and 'Bei
Mir Bist Du Schön' [See 'Benny Goodman: The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz
Concert' Columbia 160 1950]. The next month on the 1st
Goodman backed Tilton on her highly popular 'And the Angels Sing'. By the time
she left Goodman in late 1939
('A Home in the Clouds' among their last) she was a major star. She
recorded frequently with Goodman
again in the latter fifties, as well as 1978 to appear on
Goodman's album, 'Live at Carnegie Hall 40th Anniversary Concert'. She
was among the first to record for Capitol records in April of 1942
upon its founding by
Johnny Mercer when she laid
out 'Moon Dreams' for release on Capitol 138. She followed with major titles like 'I'll
Walk Alone' w Paul Weston and 'How Are Things in Glocca Morra' w Dean
Elliott in '44, 'I Should Care' and 'Stranger in Town' w Weston in '45,
and 'That's My Desire' and 'I Wonder, I Wonder, I Wonder' w Dean Elliott
in '47. Tilton maintained her status as a headliner for a couple decades
running. Her last film appearance was
in 1975, 'Queen of the Stardust Ballroom', in which she was cast as a
vocalist, alike her first film role, but this time credited. Tilton had also
recorded with band directors like Artie
Shaw (1940) and
Les Brown (1952). Tilton passed
away in Los Angeles on 6 December 2006.
Sessions per DAHR. Discographies:
1,
2,
3.
Composers. Compilations:
'And the Angel Sings' 1937-55 by Livng Era 2007;
'The Liltin' Miss Tilton: The Complete Capitol Sessions' 1942-55
by Collectors' Choice 2000.
Tilton in visual media.
NAMM interview 1994.
Archives. Titles below are in alphabetical
order by year. All 1937-39 are w
Goodman's
orchestra. Those marked "Viper's Nest" are found in the compilation, 'The
Complete 1937 Madhattan Room Broadcasts Vol 1-6' by
Viper's Nest (1995). Martha Tilton 1937 Music: Ralph Rainger Lyrics: Leo Robin Viper's Nest Music: Richard Rodgers 1937 Lyrics: Lorenz Hart For the musical 'Babes in Arms' Viper's Nest Composition: Cole Porter Viper's Nest Music: Ralph Rainger Lyrics: Leo Robin Viper's Nest Camel Caravan Radio Program Music: Ralph Rainger Lyrics: Leo Robin You Took the Words Right Out of My Heart Music: Ralph Rainger Lyrics: Leo Robin Viper's Nest Martha Tilton 1938 'To Me You're Beautiful' Live at Carnegie Hall Music: Sholom Secunda 1932 Lyrics Yiddish: Jacob Jacobs English version: Sammy Cahn/Saul Chaplin Martha Tilton 1939 Camel Caravan Radio Program Music: Walter Donaldson Lyrics: Johnny Mercer Music: Walter Donaldson Lyrics: Johnny Mercer Martha Tilton 1940 Alt 'Who's Yehoodi' Composition: Bill Seckler/Matt Dennis Film: 'Varsity Vanities' With Six Hits and a Miss Kay Kyser Orchestra Martha Tilton 1941 Film With Ben Pollack Composition: Ralph Yaw/Mel Waters Film With Bobby Sherwood Composition: Frank Kilduff/Matt Dennis Film With Ben Pollack Composition: See Wikipedia Martha Tilton 1942 Composition: Ralph Yaw/Mel Waters Martha Tilton 1947 Composition: Helmy Kresa/Carroll Loveday Martha Tilton 1953 Alt 'If You Believed in Me' Composition: Billy Rose/Yip Harburg/Harold Arlen Martha Tilton 1956 With Benny Goodman Live performance Composition: Ziggie Elman/Johnny Mercer Martha Tilton 1963 Television performance Composition: Don Raye/Gene DePaul/Patricia Johnston Martha Tilton 1975 With Orrin Tucker & Orchestra Composition: Alan & Marilyn Bergman Billy Goldenberg/Marvin Hamlisch Film: 'Queen of the Stardust Ballroom'
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Born in 1917 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, singer Helen Forrest first recorded in 1938 with Artie Shaw: 'You're a Sweet Little Headache' and 'I Have Eyes'. After that was confirmed she moved on to Benny Goodman, though not until after her last of numerous sessions with Shaw, that on November 11, 1939, for an NBC radio broadcast from the Cafe Rouge at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York yielding 'Moonray'. Her initial session with Goodman followed in December: 'Does Your Heart Beat for Me?'. Forrest swung with Goodman well into '41 before joining Harry James' operation the same year, her debut recordings with James a radio broadcast from the Hotel Sherman in Chicago on August 10, yielding 'Perfidia' among others. Forrest recorded with James extensively as late as the seventies. Forrest had first left James in 1943 to pursue a solo career. (Though married thrice it was James, who was an affair, whom she later reminisced she most loved, he also her favorite band leader for whom to work.) She secured a Decca recording contract, also appearing on CBS radio from 1944 to '47 with Dick Haymes. Forrest led a highly active career, recording more than 500 songs. Though she issued her last album in 1983, 'Now and Forever', she performed into the early nineties until forced to retire by rheumatoid arthritis. She died of heart failure on July 11 of 1999 in Los Angeles. References: 1, 2, 3, 4. Discographies: 1, 2, 3, 4. Forrest in visual media. NAMM interview 1994. Other profiles: 1, 2. Archives: 'Slade' '67, 'Citizen' '83', 'Associated Press' '95. All tracks for 1983 below are from the LP, 'Now and Forever'. Helen Forrest 1938 With Artie Shaw Composition: Edward Heyman/Paul Mann/Stephen Weiss With Artie Shaw Composition: Noel Coward With Artie Shaw Music: Peter DeRose 1933 Lyrics: Mitchell Parish 1938 You're a Sweet Little Headache With Artie Shaw 78 RPM Composition: Leo Robin/Ralph Rainger You're a Sweet Little Headache With Artie Shaw Remastered Composition: Leo Robin/Ralph Rainger Helen Forrest 1939 With Artie Shaw Music: Jerome Kern Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II With Artie Shaw Composition: Artie Shaw Helen Forrest 1940 With Benny Goodman Music: Vincent Youmans 1929 Lyrics: Billy Rose/Edward Eliscu Helen Forrest 1942 I Don't Want to Walk Without You With Harry James Music: Jule Styne 1941 Lyrics: Frank Loesser Helen Forrest 1983 From the album 'Now and Forever': Composition: George & Ira Gershwin Music: Gus Arnheim/Abe Lyman Lyrics: Arthur Freed Composition: George & Ira Gershwin I Don't Want to Walk Without You Music: Jule Styne 1941 Lyrics: Frank Loesser Music: Jule Styne 1942 Lyrics: Sammy Cahn Composition: Jason Darr/Jacen Dean Ekstrom Brian Howes/Mike Sweeney/Jamie Warren
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Helen Forrest Source: Jazz Wax |
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Born Elizabeth Thornburg in 1921 in Battle Creek, Michigan, actress Betty Hutton was fifteen when she left Michigan for New York City with $200 and designs on a career in show business. She had begun singing at age three with her mother (a bootlegger) and sister, Marion (then five), in their family's speakeasy. She made her film debut in 'Queens of the Air', a Vitaphone short, in 1938. The next year she sang 'Ol Man Mose' in the film short, 'Vincent Lopez and His Orchestra'. She also released her debut recordings singling lead with Lopez in '38 per 'Igloo' (Bluebird 10300) and 'The Jitterbug' (Bluebird 10367). Early 1940 found her on the East Coast performing in 'Two for the Show' on Broadway. Hutton's films were made largely for Paramount Pictures, beginning in 1942 ('The Fleet's In'). Her appearance in 'The Stork Club' in 1945 saw to her highly popular issue of 'Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief' that year backed by the Paul Weston Orchestra. Another of her favored recordings was her duet w Perry Como in 1950 on 'A Bushel and a Peck'. Upon leaving Paramount in 1952 (after nineteen films) Hutton began working radio and touring nightclubs including Las Vegas. She hosted 'The Betty Hutton Show' in 1959-60. Betty made her last film, 'Spring Reunion', in 1957. Things began falling apart for Hutton in 1967, declaring bankruptcy that year with debts of $150,000. Alcohol, pills, a suicide attempt and nervous breakdown followed, she also losing her singing voice in 1970. Becoming Catholic, she began working as a cook and housekeeper at St. Anthony's rectory in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1974. After a stay of several years Hutton later earned an MA from Salve Regina University in Rhode Island in 1988. (Her sister, Marion, had also earned a Master's in psychology, though a couple decades earlier.) She had given her last performance in 1983 on 'Jukebox Saturday Night' aired by PBS. Also in the eighties Hutton worked as a hostess for a sports center in Connecticut and taught acting at Emerson College in Boston. In 1999 Hutton left New England for Palm Springs, where she died on 12 March 2007. More Betty Hutton under Marion Hutton. References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Hutton in film. On Broadway. Discographies: 1, 2, 3. Compilations: 'The Blonde Bombshell in Hollywood' 1942-52 by Jasmine 2006: 1, 2, 3. Archives: Betty Hutton Estate, Internet Archive. Other profiles: 1, 2. Betty Hutton 1938 Composition: Larry Clinton Film: 'Queens of the Air' Betty Hutton 1939 Composition: Irving Taylor/Vic Mizzy Composition: Cab Calloway/Edwin Swayzee Film: 'Vincent Lopez Orchestra' Betty Hutton 1943 Composition: Jimmy McHugh/Frank Loesser Film Betty Hutton 1944 Composition: Johnny Burke/Jimmy Van Heusen Film: 'And the Angels Sing' Betty Hutton 1945 Composition: Isham Jones/Gus Kahn Film: 'Incendiary Blonde' Music: James Monaco Lyrics: William Jerome Film: 'Incendiary Blonde' Composition: Frank Loesser Film: 'The Perils of Pauline' Betty Hutton 1946 Composition: Hoagy Carmichael/Paul Francis Webster Film: 'The Stork Club' Composition: Mann Curtis/Vic Mizzy Released 1950 Betty Hutton 1949 Composition: Frank Loesser Film: 'Red, Hot and Blue' Composition: Frank Loesser Film: 'Red, Hot and Blue' Betty Hutton 1950 Music: Jay Livingston Lyrics: Ray Evans Film: 'Annie Get Your Gun' Composition: Milton Delugg/Willie Stein Composition: Frank Loesser Film: 'Let's Dance' With Fred Astaire Betty Hutton 1951 Composition: Hans Lang/Bert Reisfeld Betty Hutton 1952 With Perry Como Composition: Lenny Stack Betty Hutton 1960 'The Betty Hutton Show' With sister Marion Hutton Composition: Spencer Williams 'The Betty Hutton Show' With sister Marion Hutton Composition: Peter Wendell/Pleasant Joseph
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Betty Hutton 1952 Source: Wikipedia |
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| Born Marion Thornburg in 1919 in Battle Creek, Michigan,
Marion Hutton,
elder sister of Betty Hutton by two years,
began performing at age five with her mother and sister in their family's
speakeasy. Like her sister, Betty,
Marion began
her professional singing career with Vincent Lopez. Unlike her sister, if
she recorded with Lopez there is no record of it. Discovered by
Glenn Miller in 1938, while Betty
remained in California to build a career in film (until an appearance on
Broadway in 1940) Marion headed to points East w
Miller's swing orchestra. Though
Marion wasn't the film star that her sister was she was considerably the
more focused on recording w nigh 300 sessions traced by Lord, most of them
with
Miller. Lord finds Marion
backing unidentified titles by
Miller as early as 27 September
in New York City. Come a CBS radio broadcast from the Roseland State
Ballroom in Boston on 13 December 1938 for 'Mutiny in the Nursery' sung
with
Ray Eberle and
Tex Beneke. That later saw issue
in the UK on an unknown date on Soundcraft LP-1022. A date for NBC on 23
December 1938 from the Roseland State Ballroom in NYC heard Marion leading
'What Have You got That Gets Me?' and 'Wait Until My Heart Finds Out'.
Those transcriptions saw later issue on CD per Jazz Hour JH1004. Multiple
broadcasts for NBC from the Paradise Restaurant in NYC ensued into 1939
when Hutton led titles backed by Miller for the Bluebird label: 'Shut-Eye'
(10139) and 'Cuckoo in the Clock'/'Romance Runs in the Family' (10145).
Eberle was flip to 10139 per 'How
I'd Like to Be with You in Bermuda'.
IMDb has Marion first appearing in film
while with Miller in 1942 per
'Orchestra Wives'. Marion remained w Miller
off and on until his final performance w his band on 27 September 1942,
after which he left his orchestrra to join the Allied effort during World
War II (to die in '44). Marion's last film role was in 1949 with the Marx Brothers in 'Love Happy'.
Lord tracks her to as late as January of 1959 for 'Booglie Wooglie Piggy'
(Coral 9-62037) w backing by
Beneke. Upon a highly active
career Marion began to prefer the more domestic lifestyle of a mother and wife,
largely retiring in the mid fifties to reside with her third and last husband, Vic Schoen, until her
death in 1987. Like her sister, Betty,
Marion experienced alcohol and pill addictions. Also like her sister,
Marion earned a Master's Degree in psychology (though a couple decades
earlier in the sixties), then worked at a hospital. In 1981 Hutton moved
to Kirkland, Washington, with her husband, Schoen,
to found Residence XII, an addiction center. She died there of cancer six
years later on 10 January. More of
Miller in
Swing Bands.
References: 1,
2,
3,
4.
Discographies: 1,
2,
3.
Archives. All tracks through 1942 below are with the
Glenn Miller Orchestra. Marion Hutton 1939 Ding Dong the Wicked Witch Is Dead Composition: Yip Harburg/Harold Arlen Composition: Harold Rome Composition: Jerry Brandow Leonard Ware Willie Spottswood Composition: Cab Calloway/Frank Froeba/Jack Palmer Composition: Betty Lynn/Jo Carringer/Larry Clinton Marion Hutton 1940 With Tex Beneke Composition: Hoagy Carmichael/Johnny Mercer Marion Hutton 1941 With Tex Beneke Composition: Jack Yellen/Sam E. Fain With Tex Beneke Composition: Sidney Lippman/Stanley Joseloff Marion Hutton 1942 With Tex Beneke Composition: Harry Warren/Mack Gordon Film: 'Orchestra Wives' With Tex Beneke Composition: Harry Warren/Mack Gordon Film: 'Orchestra Wives' Marion Hutton 1955 With sister Betty Hutton Composition: Robert Scherman With sister Betty Hutton Composition: Forest Wilson/Eunice Levy/Jake Porter Marion Hutton 1960 Girls Were Made to Take Care of Boys Composition: Ralph Blane 'The Betty Hutton Show'
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Marion Hutton Photo: Murray Korman Source: 42nd Street |
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Jo Stafford Source: Oz Hitzory |
In 1939 Tommy Dorsey hired a vocal group called the Pied Pipers [1, 2] of which Jo Stafford was a lead singer. Born in 1917 in Coalinga, California, though Stafford rose to fame with the Pied Pipers her debut recordings had been with Frank Trumbauer in Los Angeles on February 11, 1938, 'It's Wonderful' the first of several in that session. The original Pipers recorded 'Sugar Foot Stomp'/'Polly Wolly Doodle All the Day' (Victor 26320) and 'In a Little Spanish Town'/'What Is This Thing Called Love' (Victor 26364) in 1938. Stafford first recorded as one of the Pied Pipers with Dorsey on February 1, 1940, with Frank Sinatra's first appearance as a Piper: 'After I Say I'm Sorry' and 'Sweet Potato Piper'. Their next session was on February 21, 1940 for a radio broadcast from the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, New Jersey: 'I Thought About You'. Though Sinatra sang most the vocals during that session Stafford also appeared solo on 'Darn That Dream'. The Pipers also recorded 'Piggy Wiggy Woo' b/w 'Crazy Rhythm' in 1940 (Varsity 8362). Other original Pipers had John Huddleston, Hal Hopper, Chuck Lowry, Bud Hervey, George Tait, Woody Newbury and Dick Whittinghill. Among other members over the years were Connie Haines, Jane Hutton and Johnny Mercer.) Stafford began to pursue her solo career in 1944. In 1945 she served a residency at the La Martinique in NYC. Shortly afterward she acquired the name "G.I. Jo" during her work with the USO. In California in 1946, Stafford hosted the 'Chesterfield Supper Club' radio show until 1949. Stafford created the first of her comical personas, "Cinderella G. Stump", in 1947 with the release of 'Temptation' with Red Ingle. Recording it as a joke (a spoof of the currently popular rendition by Perry Como), she waved royalties. Her second issue with Ingle the next year was 'The Prisoner of Love's Song'. In 1948 she began issuing a number of duets with Gordon MacRae. In 1950 she hosted Radio Luxembourg (without pay), 'Club Fifteen' (for CBS) and Voice of America (which main mission was the undermining of communism). She began releasing duets with Frankie Laine in 1951. Stafford married arranger and band director, Paul Weston [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], in 1952, who would remain her most important collaborator throughout the rest of her career (with whose band she sings on a major portion of tracks below). She began appearing on television in 1954 on her own program, 'The Jo Stafford Show'. In 1957 she and Weston, released the album, 'The Piano Artistry of Jonathan Edwards', on which Stafford assumed the comical persona of Darlene Edwards, a vocalist who couldn't sing accompanied by a pianist who couldn't play piano. Several more Edwards albums were issued until their last in 1982: 'Darlene Remembers Duke, Jonathan Plays Fats'. With the exception of the Edwards albums and a second recording of 'Whispering Hope' with her daughter in 1978, Stafford retired from the music industry in 1975. She performed again in 1990 at an event in honor of Frank Sinatra. But her greater interest was in acquiring the rights to her earlier recordings for Columbia via lawsuit, then releasing such on the Corinthian label, founded by Weston in the seventies. Weston having died in 1996, in 2006 Stafford donated his and her libraries (arrangements, recordings, etc.) to the University of Arizona. She herself passed away of heart failure on 16 July 2008 [1, 2]. More Pied Pipers under Frank Sinatra. References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Stafford and Voice of America. Sessions: Pied Pipers 1, Lord's; Stafford: 1, 2, Lord's. Catalogues: Pied Pipers: 1, 2, 3; Stafford: 1, 2, 3. Pied Pipers in visual media; Stafford in visual media. NAMM interview 1995. Archives: Unidentified 1947; Pittsburgh Press 1951; Pittsburgh Press 1964. Other profiles: 1, 2. Per 1947 below, 'Temptation' is a spoof of the 1945 Perry Como release written by Ignacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed in 1933, first performed by Bing Crosby that year in the film, 'Going Hollywood'. Per 1957, Jonathan Edwards = Paul Weston. Jo Stafford 1938 Pied Pipers Music: Mabel Waynet Lyrics: Sam Lewis/Joe Young What Is This Thing Called Love? Pied Pipers Composition: Cole Porter Jo Stafford 1940 Pied Pipers Composition: Abel Baer/Ira Schuster/Paul Cunningham Pied Pipers Music: Hoagy Carmichael Lyrics: Mitchell Parish Jo Stafford 1941 Pied Pipers Music: Matt Dennis Lyrics: Tom Adair Jo Stafford 1942 Pied Pipers Composition: Harold Adamson/Louis Alter Pied Pipers Composition: 1942: Stanley Adams/Abel Baer/George Meyer Jo Stafford 1944 Composition: Irving Kahal/Sammy Fain Composition: Cole Porter Music: Jerome Kern Lyrics: Ira Gershwin On the Sunny Side of the Street Pied Pipers Composition: Jimmy McHugh/Dorothy Fields Jo Stafford 1945 Composition: Johnny Burke/Jimmy van Heusen Jo Stafford 1947 Music: Richard Rodgers Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II As Cinderella G. Stump with Red Ingle Composition: See above Jo Stafford 1949 Composition: Dick Reynolds/Russ Carlyle Duet with Gordon MacRae Composition: Alice Hawthorne Jo Stafford 1951 Composition: Paul Mason Howard/Paul Weston Jo Stafford 1952 Music: Arthur Schwartz Lyrics: Howard Dietz Jo Stafford 1953 Composition: Dante Valentini/Eldo Di Lazzaro/Sunny Skylar Composition: Pee Wee King/Chilton Price/Redd Stewart Jo Stafford 1956 With the Art Van Damme Quintet Composition: George & Ira Gershwin Music: Hoagy Carmichael 1938 Lyrics: Ned Washington Jo Stafford 1957 As Darlene Edwards with Jonathan Edwards Music: Vincent Youmans 1933 Lyrics: Edward Eliscu/Gus Kahn As Darlene Edwards with Jonathan Edwards Composition: Arthur Johnston/Sam Coslow 1934 For the film 'Murder at the Vanities' See * Composition: Edward Heyman/Johnny Green As Darlene Edwards with Jonathan Edwards Composition: Edward Heyman/Johnny Green Jo Stafford 1958 Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe Composition: Harold Arlen/Yip/ Harburg For the film 'Cabin in the Sky' 1943 Composition: 1944: Axel Stordahl/Paul Weston/Sammy Cahn For the film 'Thrill of a Romance' 1945 Jo Stafford 1963 Composition: Ruth Lowe
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Born Rosetta Nubin in 1915 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, guitarist and gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe [*] first recorded for Decca with Lucky Millinder in 1938. Tharpe had begun playing guitar at age four and was performing with her mother at age six in a traveling gospel troupe. In 1934 she married a preacher named Thomas Thorpe. Though they separated in 1938 she retained his last name with a variation. Tharpe split from Thorpe to NYC with her mother the same year, thence to record with Millinder. Among her first tracks were 'Rock Me', 'That's All', 'My Man and I' and 'The Lonesome Road'. It was also 1938 that Tharpe began appearing with Cab Calloway at the Cotton Club in Harlem. Tharpe was fundamentally a blues and gospel singer born to the swing era, and she always preferred performing gospel to secular music. Among the better known gospel groups with which she worked were the Jordanaires and the Dixie Hummingbirds. After World War II, during which she recorded V-discs (distributed only to Allied troops), she teamed with gospel and R&B singer Marie Knight. The duet was so popular that when Tharpe staged a concert on her wedding day in 1951 (her manager and third husband, Russell Morrison) more than 25,000 people attended. In 1964 Tharpe toured Europe with the Blues and Gospel Caravan. In 1970 Tharpe suffered a stroke and stopped performing due to a leg amputation necessitated by diabetes. She died in Philadelphia on October 9, 1973, after a second stroke [*]. Tharpe had composed such as 'Strange Things Happening Every Day' ('45) and 'Nobody Knows, Nobody Cares' ('47). See australiancharts, 45worlds, 45cat and discogs for production and songwriting credits. See also allmusic 1, 2, 3, 4. Tharpe in visual media. Earlier recordings by Tharpe w references at Blues 3. Earlier recordings also at R&B. Sister Rosetta Tharpe 1941 With Lucky Millinder Composition: Byron Gay/Marco H. Hellman Film with Lucky Millinder Music: Nathaniel Shilkret Lyrics: Gene Austin Sister Rosetta Tharpe 1964 Film Composition: Traditional
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Sister Rosetta Tharpe Source: Roq n Rol
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Kitty Kallen Source: Discogs |
Born Katherine Kalinsky in 1922 in
Philadelphia, PA, Kitty Kallen
[1,
2,
3,
4] had
her own radio show in Philadelphia before she was a teenager (WCAU). She sang
with the Jan Savitt Orchestra at age fourteen, the
Artie Shaw Orchestra at
age sixteen. Lord's Disco finds her at age 17 with the
Jack Teagarden Orchestra
as early as 22 and 23 August 1939 for radio broadcasts from Frank Dailey's
Meadowbrook nightclub in Cedar Grove, NJ. Transcriptions of 'The Lamp Is
Low', 'Stairway to the Stars' and 'Blue Evening' eventually saw issue on
CD per Vernon Music VMCD-13199 in 1999. There was also a session next door
in NYC on 23 August toward 'I'm Takin' My Time with You'/'I Wanna Hat with
Cherries' (Columbia 35224) and 'Two Blind Loves'/'Hawaii Sang Me to Sleep'
(Columbia 35233). In 1943 she filled
Helen O'Connell's vacancy in the
Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra when the latter resigned to attend to
a new marriage. She began 1947 on Broadway in 'Finian's Rainbow' until
replaced by Sharon McLonergan [IMDB].
IMDb discovers her in film for the
first time in 1949 performing 'Kiss Me Sweet' in the RKO short, 'Piano
Rhythm'. As indicated, upon several years of big band swing Kallen began
expanding her repertoire toward
popular music in the latter forties upon venturing a solo career. Duets with Richard Hayes sold high in
'50 and '51: 'Our Lady of Fatima' (Mercury 5466) and 'The Aba Daba
Honeymoon' (Mercury 5586). TsorT has Kallen's
best-selling titles released in 1954: 'Little Things Mean a Lot' (Decca
29037) and 'In the Chapel in the Moonlight' (Decca 29130). Discogs and RYM
have her issuing the album, 'Kitty Kallen & The Satin Strings', in 1954.
The fifties also witnessed duets w Georgie Shaw. Several followed to the 1964 release of the bossa nova album, 'Quiet Nights', with the Manny Albam Orchestra.
Jim Hall (guitar),
Richard Davis (bass) and
Mel Lewis (drums) assisted on that.
Kallen died [1,
2] on 7 Jan 2016 in Cuernavaca, Mexico (about an hour's drive
south of Mexico City). Sessions at DAHR.
Discographies: 1,
2,
3,
4.
Compilations: 'The Kitty Kallen Story' by
Sony 1992.
Archives: IA,
'Pittsburgh Press'
1949. Kitty Kallen 1939 Jack Teagarden Orchestra Composition: Al Stillman/Fred E. Ahlert Jack Teagarden Orchestra Composition: Al Stillman/Fred E. Ahlert Kitty Kallen 1943 'Kiss Me Much' Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra With Bob Eberly Composition: Consuelo Velázquez 1940 Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra With Bob Eberly Composition: Don Raye/Jean De Paul They're Either Too Young Or Too Old Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra With Bob Eberly Composition: Arthur Schwartz/Frank Loesser Kitty Kallen 1944 Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra Composition: Sam Stept Kitty Kallen 1945 Harry James Orchestra Composition: Jule Styne/Sammy Cahn Harry James Orchestra Composition: Don George/Duke Ellington/Johnny Hodges Kitty Kallen 1946 Artie Shaw Orchestra Composition: Cole Porter Kitty Kallen 1953 Are You Looking for a Sweetheart? Composition: Larry Stevens/Sherwood Hartmann Kitty Kallen 1954 In the Chapel in the Moonlight Jack Pleis Orchestra Composition: Billy Hill 1936 Music: Carl Stutz 1953 Lyrics: Edith Lindeman Kitty Kallen 1955 Composition: Pat Noto Kitty Kallen 1956 Composition: Jacques Prévert/Joseph Kosma/Johnny Mercer Kitty Kallen 1957 Composition: Johnny Burke/James Van Heusen Composition: Johnny Burke/James Monaco Kitty Kallen 1959 Composition: Clifford Grey/Jack Waller Joseph Tunbridge/Sonny Miller Composition: Jimmy Brewster/Jimmie Crane/Al Jacobs Kitty Kallen 1960 Composition: James House/Kostas Lazarides Composition: Lew Brown/Sammy Fain Kitty Kallen 1961 Composition: Hy Heath/Fred Rose Composition: Bob Hilliard/Milton DeLugg Composition: Boudleaux & Felice Bryant Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You) Composition: Jimmie Hodges 1944 Kitty Kallen 1962 Composition: Jule Styne/Sammy Cahn Composition: Fred Ebb/John Kander Kitty Kallen 1963 Composition: Carolyn Leigh/Cy Coleman Kitty Kallen 1964 'Corcovado' Composition: Antônio Carlos Jobim/Gene Lees Album: 'Quiet Nights'
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| Born in Lima, Ohio, in 1920,
Helen O'Connell
[1,
2,
3]
was nineteen when she joined the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra in 1939.
She'd already been appearing in clubs and on radio in Toledo, and was
working in Greenwich Village w the band of Larry Funk when noticed by
Jimmy's manager. Her first title with
Jimmy's operation was 'Romance Runs in the Family'
(Decca 2294),
recorded on February 10, 1939
[DAHR, Lord].
O'Connell first appeared in film w
Jimmy per 'The Fleet's In' in 1942
[IMDB].
She bounced w Jimmy until
getting married in 1943, resuming her career in 1951 upon divorce. During that
period she had joined Jimmy long enough in 1946 to film 'The Fabulous Dorseys'
released the next year. Upon returning to her career in '51 she that year
released her most popular title, 'Slow Poke' (Capitol 1837), backed by
Cliffie Stone. Come 1954 she appeared w
Tommy Dorsey on the CBS New York
telecast of 'Stage Show'. O'Connell toured to Australia in '55 as a
support act for main draw,
Johnnie Ray. She featured on 'Stage
Show' again in 1956 w
Tommy. Discogs has her issuing
the LP, 'Green Eyes', in 1957. O'Connell reunited with
Jimmy and frequent singing partner,
Bob Eberly,
as late as 1960 on the telecast of 'Ford Star Time Presents Stars of the
Swing Years'. O'Connell hosted the 1961-62 season of the 'Here's Hollywood' television show
w Dean Miller. She released the LP, 'Here's Helen', in 1962. 'Helen O''
followed in 1971. From 1972 to 1980 she hosted the Miss USA and Miss Universe
beauty pageants with Bob Barker. Others w whom she'd sang were
Bing Crosby,
Johnny Mercer
and Dean Martin. Married four times, O'Connell
died of hepatitis C
on 9 Sep 1993
in San Diego. More O'Connell under Bob Eberly.
Discographies: 1,
2,
3.
Archives: IA,
'The Post-Standard' 1957,
'Naples Daily News' 1974. Most tracks below are O'Connell with
Jimmy. Helen O'Connell 1939 Composition: Gerald Marks/Seymour Simons Helen O'Connell 1941 With Bob Eberly Composition: 1920: Joseph Lacalle (José María Lacalle García) Lyrics English: Albert Gamse Composition: George & Ira Gershwin With Bob Eberly Composition: Miguel Prado/Sidney Keith Russell Composition: Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler Helen O'Connell 1942 If You Build a Better Mousetrap Composition: Victor Schertzinger/Johnny Mercer Film: 'The Fleet's In' With Bob Eberly Composition: Victor Schertzinger/Johnny Mercer Film: 'The Fleet's In' With Bob Eberly Helen O'Connell 1943 Helen O'Connell 1953 With Bob Eberly Composition: Nilo Menendez/Eddie Rivera/Eddie Woods Helen O'Connell 1963 Composition: Meredith Willson
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Helen O'Connell Source: Wikipedia |
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Frank Sinatra Source: The Red List
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Born in 1915, Frank Sinatra put his birthplace, Hoboken, New Jersey, on the map. Jersey City, NJ, could later boast his daughter, vocalist, Nancy Sinatra, and crooning son, Frank Sinatra Jr. Sinatra began recording in 1939 with Harry James with 'Wishing' and 'Star Dust' during a CBS radio broadcast from the Roseland Room in NYC. Sinatra began working with Tommy Dorsey in 1940. His first recordings with Dorsey were also his first with the Pied Pipers (see Jo Stafford), those on February 1 in Chicago: 'After I Say I'm Sorry' and 'Sweet Potato Piper'. He also sang solos on 'The Sky Fell Down' and 'Too Romantic'. The Pied Pipers accompanied Dorsey consistently until 1943, on occasion afterward to as late as 1945. Also a major movie star, Sinatra's first film is thought to be in 1940: 'Las Vegas Nights'. Sinatra's major home base would become Las Vegas, he first performing there at the Desert Inn in 1951. Sinatra founded Reprise Records in 1960, the same year his 1959 album, 'Come Dance with Me!', won the second Album of the Year Grammy Award. In addition to the Pied Pipers, Sinatra was later a member of the famous Rat Pack, together with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Junior. The original Rat Pack was but a circle of friends (such as Errol Flynn, Nat King Cole, Mickey Rooney and Cesar Romero) who gravitated around Humphrey Bogart in the fifties, to which his wife, Lauren Bacall, oft played hostess. Others of Sinatra's sixties gang included Joey Bishop, Corbett Monica, Norman Fell and Peter Lawford. Female members were called Rat Pack Mascots, such as Marilyn Monroe, Angie Dickinson, Juliet Prowse and Shirley MacLaine. What that circle of friends had to do with entertainment was in that when one member was performing, largely in Las Vegas, others showed up to generate electricity, there countless examples of such between Sinatra and Martin. Variations of the Rat Pack also starred in films together. In 1966 Sinatra issued his first live album, 'Sinatra at the Sands', the same year his 1965 album, 'September of My Years', brought his second Album of the Year Grammy Award. The next year the Sands denied Sinatra credit, after which he steered a golf cart through one of its plate glass windows, then lost caps from a couple of his teeth upon the manager landing a fist. That same year he was awarded a third Album of the Year Grammy Award for 'A Man and His Music', a double-disc issued in 1965. Spiritually (ahem), Sinatra was more a pantheist than believer in a personal God. Politically, he was a believer in the New Deal and a friend of John Kennedy. After decades of buzz concerning his Mafia ties such remain alleged. Starting in the forties, he became subject to 2,403 pages worth of FBI investigation, that dossier released in 1998. (Sinatra's response in 1950 was an offer to become an FBI informant, which the Bureau declined.) Though no Communist affiliations surfaced, Sinatra apparently enjoyed the companionship of prostitutes. (Another musician who fell in with the mafia by accident much later was Tommy James of the Shondells per mobster, Morris Levy who ran Roulette Records.) Though a Democrat in his earlier years, campaigning for Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, and John Kennedy, Sinatra began supporting Ronald Reagan in 1970, then Nixon in '72, and became a friend to Spiro Agnew. The last song Sinatra performed live for an audience was 'The Best Is Yet to Come' in February of 1995, for an audience of 1200 guests on the closing night of the Frank Sinatra Desert Classic golf tournament in Palm Springs. (Sinatra himself spent small love on golf.) In December of '95 the lights on the Empire State Building were turned blue in celebration of Sinatra's 80th birthday, occasioning his last television appearance, singing 'New York, New York' at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Sinatra died [1, 2] on 14 May of 1998, his last words in his hospital room in Los Angeles reportedly, "I'm losing," in response to his wife's encouragement to fight. The next night the lights on the Empire State Building were shown blue. Engraved on his headstone is "The Best Is Yet to Come". Among Sinatra's most notable collaborators over the years had been bandleader Count Basie, jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald and folk singer John Denver. References encyclopedic: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; musical; 1, 2, 3, 4; Clarke; timelines: 1, 2. Sessions: DAHR; Lord; Sinatra website: sessions, transcriptions. Discographies: 45 Worlds; Discogs; RYM; Wikipedia; Sinatra website: singles, EPs, V-Discs, albums. Sinatra in visual media. Awards. Facebook tribute. Discussion: 1, 2. Further reading: Clarke; 'Esquire' 1966; Las Vegas; politics; Washington Post. More Pied Pipers under Jo Stafford. Tracks below are alphabetical by year. Frank Sinatra 1939 With Harry James Composition: Andy Gibson/Billy Hayes Harry James/Morty Berk With Harry James Music: Hoagy Carmichael 1927 Lyrics: Mitchell Parish 1929 Frank Sinatra 1940 With the Pied Pipers Composition: Ruth Lowe The One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else With the Pied Pipers Music: Isham Jones 1924 Lyrics: Gus Kahn With Tommy Dorsey Music: Jimmy Van Heusen 1940 Lyrics: Johnny Burke Frank Sinatra 1941 With the Pied Pipers & Connie Haines Music: Joe Bushkin 1941 Lyrics: John DeVries Frank Sinatra 1942 With the Pied Pipers Composition: 1942: Stanley Adams/Abel Baer/George Meyer Frank Sinatra 1943 With Tommy Dorsey Music: Jimmy Van Heusen 1941 Lyrics: Johnny Burke For the film 'Road to Zanzibar' Frank Sinatra 1954 Composition: David Raksin/Doc Stanford Music: Johnny Richards 1953 Lyrics: Carolyn Leigh Frank Sinatra 1955 Duet with Dean Martin Composition: Frank Loesser Frank Sinatra 1956 Composition: Cole Porter 1936 Frank Sinatra 1958 Composition: Sammy Cahn/Jimmy Van Heusen Music: Cy Coleman 1957 Lyrics: Carolyn Leigh Frank Sinatra 1962 Live in Paris Music: Frederick Loewe 1956 Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner For the musical 'My Fair Lady' Music: Jerome Kern Lyrics: See Wikipedia Frank Sinatra 1963 Composition: Cole Porter 1936 Frank Sinatra 1964 Music: Cy Coleman 1959 Lyrics: Carolyn Leigh Frank Sinatra 1965 Television performance Music: Johnny Richards 1953 Lyrics: Carolyn Leigh Frank Sinatra 1966 Music: Bert Kaempfert Lyrics: Charles Singleton/Eddie Snyder Composition: Dean Kay/Kelly Gordon 1963 Frank Sinatra 1967 With Grace Kelly Composition: Carson Parks With Nancy Sinatra Composition: Carson Parks Frank Sinatra 1969 Music: From 'Comme d'habitude': Claude François/Jacques Revaux Lyrics English: Paul Anka Frank Sinatra 1979 Music: John Kander 1977 Lyrics: Fred Ebb For the film 'New York, New York'
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Peggy Lee Source: Jerry Jazz |
Born Norma Deloris Egstrom in 1920 in Jamestown, North Dakota, Peggy Lee began singing professionally as a teenager on KOVC radio in Valley City, ND. It was Ken Kennedy of WDAY radio in Fargo, ND, who changed her name from Norma Egstrom to Peggy Lee. At age seventeen she left for Los Angeles, returned to North Dakota for a tonsillectomy, then headed back west where she sang at the Doll Room in Palm Springs before offered a residency at the Buttery Room in the Ambassador Hotel in Chicago. She was there noticed by Benny Goodman with who's band she quickly rose to stardom, replacing Helen Forrest. Lord's lists Lee's fist session with Goodman on August 15 in Chicago for two takes of 'Elmer's Tune', the second issued on Columbia 36359. A session on 20 August yielded 'I See a Million People' (Columbia 36379). The next month they began broadcasting from the Meadowbrook in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, Helen's first such transcription going down in 11 Sep of '41 for 'When the Sun Comes Out' eventually issued on 'Benny And Sid "Roll 'Em' (Honeysuckle Rose HR 5004/5005) w 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes' transcribed on 16 Sep. Come a session on the 25th to yield several tracks among which 'That's the Way It Goes' was issued on Columbia GL523 and two takes of 'Let's Do It' were released on Columbia P6-14538 and Okeh 6474. Lee was also a songwriter, her first work, 'Little Fool', published in 1941. In 1948, Lee issued her first album on 10", a collection of issues titled 'Rendezvous With Peggy Lee' released again on LP in 1955 with four additional tracks [Discogs]. Lee had first appeared in film uncredited with Goodman's outfit in 1941 per 'Stage Door Canteen' singing 'Why Don't You Do Right' [IMDb]. She performed or composed for several more films, some shorts, until her first appearance on television in 1951 per 'The Frank Sinatra Show'. The next year she starred opposite Danny Thomas in the 1952 version of 'The Jazz Singer'. A Republican, she supported Eisenhower's bid for President in 1952. Her performance as an alcoholic blues singer in 'Pete Kelly's Blues' in 1955 was nominated for an Academy Award. She began research in 1962 for 'The Jazz Tree', an examination of the roots of jazz presented in 1963 at Lincoln Center in New York City [*]. She later presented 'The Blues Branch of the Jazz Tree' at the Ballroom in NYC in 1996 [*]. Lee wrote the lyrics and starred in her musical memoir, 'Peg', presented for five performances at Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in Dec 1983 [*]. Her written autobiography, 'Miss Peggy Lee', saw first edition by Donald I. Fine Inc. in March 1989. Lee performed into the nineties, her composition, 'Please Don't Rush Me', appearing on the 1998 reissue of 'Mink Jazz' (first released in '63). Lee had issued above forty LPs before succumbing to diabetes and heart attack on 21 Jan 2002 in Los Angeles, her gravestone reading, "Music is my life's breath". Peggy Lee was the inspiration for the Muppet character, Miss Piggy. References: 1 (exhaustive), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 'Women & Music: A History' edited by Karin Pendle by Indiana University Press 1991/2001. Sessionographies [see Indexes and Studio]. Discographies: 1, 2, 3, 4. Composers covered. Songwriting credits. In radio [see Indexes, Transcriptions, Media]. In film. In television. Concerts. Interviews: television: w Johnny Carson 1977, w Allan Hargreaves 1977, w Charlie Rose 1992; text: Les Tomkins 1984; oral: NAMM 1994. Archives: IA, periodicals. Peggy Lee 1941 With Benny Goodman Music: Harold Arlen Lyrics: Johnny Mercer How Long Has This Been Going On With Benny Goodman Composition: George & Ira Gershwin On the Sunny Side of the Street With Benny Goodman Music: Jimmy McHugh Lyrics: Dorothy Fields Somebody Else Is Taking My Place With Benny Goodman Composition: Freddy Garcia/Delmar Brown/Joe Galdo With Benny Goodman Music: Richard Rodgers 1937 Lyrics: Lorenz Hart For the musical 'Babes in Arms' With Benny Goodman Composition: Ted Shapiro Peggy Lee 1946 Composition: Charles Carpenter/Earl Hines/Louis Dunlap Peggy Lee 1948 Composition: Dave Barbour/Peggy Lee Composition: Watt Watkins Peggy Lee 1956 You've Got to See Mamma Every Night Composition: Con Conrad/Billy Rose Peggy Lee 1960 Music: Frederick Loewe 1956 Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner For the musical 'My Fair Lady'
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Born Anita Belle Colton in 1919 in Chicago, Anita O'Day began her music career as an endurance dancer at age fourteen, sometimes called upon to sing. She is thought to have changed her surname from Colton to O'Day during that period because it was pig Latin for "dough" (money). She gave up touring with dance marathons [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] in 1936 to become a chorus girl back in Chicago, branching out to nightclubs. She was working at the Off-Beat in Chicago in 1941 when the opportunity arrived to replace Irene Daye in Gene Krupa's orchestra. Lord's Disco traces her first recordings to a radio broadcast from Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook nightclub in Cedar Grove, NJ, on 1 March of '41 for 'Drum Boogie' and 'Fool Am I'. Those transcriptions eventually saw issue on Masters of Jazz MJCD167 w a couple other early recordings per the 'Fitch Bandwagon' program in NYC on 2 March for 'Alreet' and another rendition of 'Drum Boogie'. O'Day recorded 'Drum Boogie' w Krupa at least seven times that year. (Daye had performed it w Krupa before her.) A session in New York City on 12 March wrought 'Alreet'/'Georgia on My Mind' (Okeh 6118) w 'A Fool Am I' (Okeh 6154). O'Day first appeared in film with Krupa in 1942 per a couple of Minoco shorts: 'Thanks for the Boogie Ride' and 'Let Me Off Uptown'. O'Day recorded 34 tracks with Krupa until his arrest for marijuana possession in 1943. O'Day then joined Woody Herman's band, then sang with the Nat King Cole Trio. Stan Kenton's orchestra followed in May of 1944, the latter resulting in 21 recordings. She was back with Krupa in '45. In 1947 O'Day herself was jailed for marijuana possession. She was arrested a second time for cannabis in 1952, but found not guilty. Between 1952 and '62 she issued 17 albums for Norman Granz, her first, 'Anita O'Day Sings Jazz' (reissued in 1957 as 'The Lady Is a Tramp'). Upon release from jail for heroin possession in 1954 she recorded and released her second album, 'Songs by Anita O'Day' (reissued in 1956 as 'An Evening with Anita O'Day'). Notable in 1958 was her performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, documented in the film, 'Jazz on a Summer's Day'. The next year she toured Europe with Benny Goodman. Her final studio release was the album, 'Indestructible!', in April of 2006. O'Day died [1, 2, 3] in her sleep on 23 Nov (Thanksgiving Day) 2006 while hospitalized in West Hollywood for pneumonia (of which all eventually die unless by earlier cause). References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Discos: 1, 2, 3, 4. Compilations: 'Let Me Off Uptown' 1941-45 by Topaz Jazz 1996. Archives. Other profiles: 1, 2, 3. Anita O'Day 1941 Radio broadcast from the Hollywood Palladium Transcribed October 1 Composition: Gene Krupa/Roy Eldridge Composition: Earl Bostic/Redd Evans Composition: Rob Bauer/Teddy Hill Anita O'Day 1942 Composition: Sidney Mitchell/Buck Ram Composition: Luckey Roberts/Andy Razaf Anita O'Day 1945 Anita O'Day 1956 Composition: Fats Waller/Andy Razaf Film short with the Buddy DeFranco Quartet Composition: Jule Styne/Sammy Cahn With the Buddy Bregman Orchestra Anita O'Day 1958 Newport Jazz Festival Composition: 1937: Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart For the musical 'Babes in Arms' Newport Jazz Festival Composition: 1925: Music: Ben Bernie/Maceo Pinkard Lyrics: Kenneth Casey Composition: Billy Strayhorn For Duke Ellington 1941 Newport Jazz Festival Music: Vincent Youmans 1925 Lyrics: Irving Caesar For the musical 'No No, Nanette' Anita O'Day 1963 Live in Tokyo Composition: Jimmy Giuffre Anita O'Day 1970 Live in Berlin Composition: Harvey Schmidt/Tom Jones
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Anita O'Day Source: Jazz Labels |
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Ella Mae Morse Source: Folie Magazine
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Born in Sep 1924 in Mansfield, Texas, Ella Mae Morse [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] was but 17 when she joined the band of boogie woogie pianist, Freddie Slack [1, 2, 3, 4], and made her first issued recording in Los Angeles on 21 May 1942, 'Cow Cow Boogie' on Capitol 102. She appeared in her first film w Slack released in Feb of '43 per 'Reveille with Beverly' [IMDb]. Her later version of 'Cow Cow Boogie' w the Dick Walters Orchestra on Capitol 143 topped the R&B chart in Dec of '43. Containing her highly popular 'No Love, No Nothin'' flip side, that was also Capitol Records' first gold disc [Wikipedia]. Morse followed those in 1944 w her high-selling titles, 'Milkman Keep Those Bottle Quiet'/'Tess's Torch Song' (Capitol 151) and 'The Patty Cake Man' (Capitol 163). It was 'Buzz Me' (Capitol 226) in 1946 and 'The Blacksmith Blues' (Capitol 1922) in 1952. 1954 saw the release of her album w Big Dave and his Orchestra, 'Barrelhouse, Boogie and the Blues' (Capitol H 513/T 513). Morse recorded her last solo issue in 1957 per the album, 'Morse Code' (Capitol T 898). She also appeared on television a couple times that year as well as w Charlie Barnet in the Universal film short, 'Record Hop'. Performing 'Accentuate the Positive', Lord's has that issued on the later compilation, 'Film Tracks of Charlie Barnet' (Joyce LP-3001). Lord tracks Morse to as late as 1962 in Hollywood w the Red Norvo Quintet to spread along 'That Old Black Magic' issued in 1995 on 'The Red Norvo Quintet' (Studio West 103CD) [Discogs]. Morse continued working nightclubs on both coasts into the nineties, such as Michael's Pub in New York and Ye Little Pub, the Cinegrill and the Vine St. Bar and Grill in Los Angeles. She also appeared at Disneyland for several years with the Ray McKinley Orchestra and toured Australia. Morse died on 16 Oct 1999 of heart failure in Bullhead, Arizona. Morse is an excellent example of transition from boogie woogie and swing toward rock and roll. Some consider her the first rock vocalist. More Ella Mae Morse. Discographies: 1, 2, 3. Compilations: 'Barrelhouse, Boogie and the Blues' 1942-57 by Bear Family 1997. NAMM oral interview 1995. Archives. Other profiles: 1, 2, 3. Ella Mae Morse 1942 Music: Don Raye Lyrics: Benny Carter/Gene De Paul For the comedy film 'Ride 'Em Cowboy' Composition: Don Raye/Gene De Paul Composition: Don Raye/Gene De Paul Composition: Don Raye/Gene De Paul Composition: Robert Emmett Dolan/Johnny Mercer Composition: Lew Brown/Ray Henderson Ella Mae Morse 1943 Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet Composition: Don Raye/Gene De Paul Composition: Roy Jordan Composition: Phil Moore Composition: Don Raye/Gene De Paul Ella Mae Morse 1945 Composition: Don Raye/Freddie Slack Composition: Bob Levinson/George Handy/Howard Leeds Composition: Johnny Lange/Ralph Wolfe Ella Mae Morse 1953 Composition: Danny Overbea Composition: Jesse Stone
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84 Years of 'On the Sunny Side of the Street'Music: Jimmy McHugh Lyrics: Dorothy Fields Grace Hayes 1930 Layton and Johnstone 1930 Ted Lewis 1930 Harry Richman 1930 Louis Armstrong 1934 Coleman Hawkins 1934 Chick Webb 1934 Casa Loma Orchestra 1935 Lionel Hampton 1937 Duke Ellington/Ivie Anderson 1938 Nat King Cole 1940 Chu Berry 1941 Judy Garland 1942 Erroll Garner 1944 Lionel Hampton/Bing Crosby 1944 Coleman Hawkins 1944 Billie Holiday 1944 Jo Stafford 1944 Art Tatum 1944 Tommy Dorsey 1945 Django Reinhardt/Hubert Rostaing 1946 Ella Mae Morse 1947 Lester Young/Oscar Peterson 1952 Frank Sinatra 1953 Keely Smith 1953 Les Paul/Mary Ford 1955 Teddy Wilson 1956 Dizzy Gillespie/Sonny Rollins/Sonny Stitt 1957 Paul Quinichette 1957 Norma Bengell 1959 Teddy Charles 1959 Keely Smith 1959 Johnny Mathis 1960 Doris Day 1961 Four Freshmen 1961 Johnny Hodges 1961 Brenda Lee 1961 Marty Robbins 1962 Ella Fitzgerald 1963 Stevie Wonder 1963 Joni James 1964 Johnny Tillotson 1964 Dean Martin 1966 Jimmy McGriff 1966 Tony Bennett 1967 Udo Jürgens 1969 James Booker 1977 Willie Nelson 1978 Harry Connick Jr. 1987 Sidney Bechet 1991 Marie Muldaur 1992 Diana Krall 1993 Jimmy Bruno 1994 John Pizzarelli 1953 Steve Tyrell 1995 Michael Kaeshammer 1998 Lisa Ono 1999 Nicholas Payton 2001 Terence Blanchard/Cassandra Wilson 2001 Dave Brubeck Quartet 2003 Cyndi Lauper 2003 Roberta Gambarini 2006 Robin McKelle 2006 Manhattan Transfer 2008 Mike Jones 2009 McFly 2010 Rod Stewart 2010 Nikki Yanofsky 2010 Thomas Winteler/Gunhild Carling 2011 Trombone Shorty 2011 Jonathan Batiste 2013 Silvia Fusè 2013 Abigail Riccards 2013 Halie Loren 2013 John Morrison 2013 Classic Jazz Quartet 2014 Dixieland Jazz Trio 2014
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We proceed no further than Ella Mae Morse on this page of swing era vocalists. We will be adding more as they occur. |
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